# Talk:English prepositions

There is an article on this subject already.  It is linked in the first sentence: Preposition and postposition.  Although that article is not strictly about English, it is certainly biased towards their use in the English language (as it should be in enWP), and there is a corresponding article in many other language Wikipedis.  Do these two really need to be separate?  I'm not the one to answer the question, just a new article reviewer posing it.  A second query that pops into my head looking at the two articles is whether the titles should be plural.  I suspect that they should both be singular or both plural.  The title has been discussed in passing at Preposition and postposition and people seem happy for it to be singular in line with normal WP policy.  Lithopsian (talk) 16:27, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

The article at Preposition and postposition should be improved to make it less Anglocentric. Many languages have prepositions. This article is strictly about English prepositions.--Brett (talk) 18:16, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:English prepositions/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 07:39, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
First batch of comments will follow later today, I hope. Tim riley talk 07:39, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Starting, perhaps perversely, with the references, I fear this article needs a lot of work before it is ready for promotion to GA. There are few citations here that meet the required standard. A few general points before I give a detailed list of points that need attention.

Page numbers: the present article is an unhappy conflation of two different styles: the first seen at ref 1 (with the page number in superscript inline) and the second at ref 27 (with the page number down with the rest of the citation). You need to standardise on one or the other (preferably the latter, by a mile, in my opinion, but I have no authority to impose a view).
Capitalisation: despite WordCat's practice, the books' authors didn't – and we don't – use sentence case for titles: In English-language titles, every word is capitalized, except for articles, short coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions. First and last words within a title, including a subtitle, are capitalized regardless of grammatical use. This is known as title case. See the Manual of Style for further details.
En-dashes, rather than hyphens, are required for  page ranges.
Page ranges must be given in full. For example the citation to Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar is correct at ref 18 and incorrect at ref 30.
ISBNs/OCLCs: our usual requirement at GA or FA level is to give ISBNs (13-digit form) where they exist and OCLCs for books too old to have ISBNs or lack them for any other reason. WorldCat will oblige with both ISBNs and OCLCs.
As the references will require major work, may I suggest that while you're at it, it would be a kindness to your readers to split the citations and the bibliography? This cuts down the verbiage considerably. Thus Aart's 2011 book would appear in the citations just as "Aarts (2011), p. so-and-so" and the title would appear just the once, in the sources section. See here (immodestly choosing one of my past GANs) for an example. There are other citation methods, such as that used here (by one of our most prolific editors of Featured Articles), but it's more complicated for the editor – and I think the reader – than the simpler system I use). This, I must emphasise, is merely a suggestion, which you may accept or reject as you wish.
Detailed comments on the references:

Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-43146-0.  – Lacking a full stop after Pullum's middle initial
Matthews, Peter (2003). The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  – Capitalisation. Lacks ISBN
Aarts, Bas (2014). The Oxford dictionary of English grammar (Second ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-174444-0. OCLC 881848052.  – Capitalisation. Otiose OCLC as we have the requisite ISBN
Leech, Geoffrey (2006-05-19). Glossary of English Grammar. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2691-5.  – Date format inconsistent with other references. Location missing.
Bain, Alexander (1863). An English grammar.  – Publisher, location, OCLC missing. Capitalisation
"Home : Oxford English Dictionary". www.oed.com. Retrieved 2021-05-02.  – No point saying "Retrieved" unless you give a link to the website. For OED citations it is best to use the Cite OED template
Bullokar, William (1980). Pamphlet for Grammar, 1586. University of Leeds, School of English.  – Place and ISBN or OCLC lacking
Kirkby, John (1746). A New English Grammar, Or, Guide to the English Tongue, with Notes: Wherein a Particular Method is Laid Down to Render the English Pronunciation Both More Fixed Among Our Selves, and Less Difficult to Foreigners ... To which is Added a Brief Latin Grammar Upon the Same Foundation. By John Kirkby. R. Manby and H.S. Cox.  – Location? OCLC?
Pullum, Geoffrey K (2016). "English grammar and English literature" (PDF).  – Link to pdf notwithstanding, the citation here should have all the usual bibliographical information
Jespersen, Otto (2007). The philosophy of grammar. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-71604-5. OCLC 1229250728.  – Capitalisation. Location. Publisher. Superfluous OCLC
Huddleston, Rodney D. (2005). A student's introduction to English grammar. Geoffrey K. Pullum. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-81551-5. OCLC 817920054.  – Capitalisation
Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. pp. 603–06.  – Layout of co-authors' names is consistent with their earlier appearance. Citation style is at odds with earlier ones to the same book. Page range incomplete.
Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. pp. 153-158.  – Location and ISBN lacking
Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. pp. 74-80.  – Ditto
Lobeck, Anne, and Kristen Denham. Navigating English Grammar: A Guide to Analyzing Real Language. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. pp. 191-200.  – Location.  ISBN.
Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. pp. 29-30.  – Ditto. En-dash needed instead of hyphen.
Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. pp. 458-62.  – Layout of co-authors' names is consistent with their earlier appearance. Citation style is at odds with earlier ones to the same book. Page range incomplete.
Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, 1985. pp. 658-59.  – Location and ISBN missing. Page range incomplete.
Gilman, Ward E., editor. "Pronouns." Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Merriam-Webster, 1994, pp. 777-79.  – Location and ISBN missing. Page range incomplete.
Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. pp. 635-43.  – Location and ISBN missing. Page range incomplete.
Gilman, Ward E., editor. "Possessive with Gerund." Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Merriam-Webster, 1994, pp. 753-55.  – Location and ISBN missing. Page range incomplete.
Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, 1985. pp. 657-58.  – Location and ISBN missing. Page range incomplete.
Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. pp. 643-45.  – Layout of co-authors' names is consistent with their earlier appearance. Citation style is at odds with earlier ones to the same book. Page range incomplete.
Lobeck, Anne, and Kristen Denham. Navigating English Grammar: A Guide to Analyzing Real Language. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. pp. 191-200.  – Location and ISBN lacking.
Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. pp. 158-60.  – Location and ISBN lacking
Bergs, Alexander (2020-12-14), Aarts, Bas; McMahon, April; Hinrichs, Lars (eds.), "Complements and Adjuncts", The Handbook of English Linguistics (1 ed.), Wiley, pp. 145–162, doi:10.1002/9781119540618.ch9, ISBN 978-1-119-54061-8, retrieved 2021-05-08  – "retrieved" uncapitalised here, though capitalised in other references.
Lobeck, Anne, and Kristen Denham. Navigating English Grammar: A Guide to Analyzing Real Language. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. pp. 190-91.  – Location.  ISBN.
"a-, prefix3." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, 2020. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020.  – See earlier point about OED citations. And why switch from "Retrieved" to "Accessed"?
"be-, prefix." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, 2020. Accessed 22 Sept. 2020.  – Ditto
Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, 1985. pp. 669-70.  – Location and ISBN missing.
Aarts, Bas. Syntactic Gradience: The Nature of Grammatical Indeterminacy. Oxford UP, 2007. pp. 215-19.  – Location and ISBN missing. Page range incomplete.
Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge UP, 2002. p. 635-43.  – See earlier point about citations to this book.
Aarts, Bas. Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford UP, 2011. p. 35.  – See earlier point about citations to this book.
Palmer, Harold E. (1969). A grammar of spoken English on a strictly phonetic basis. OCLC 465859791. – Capitalisation. Location.
I hope this list is not too daunting. Let me say that at first glance the main body of the article looks impressive, and I don't expect to quibble on the same scale when I come to review it. I'll put the review on hold to give you time to address the points above. Meanwhile if any of the points cause you difficulty by all means ping me and I'll gladly help. – Tim riley talk 10:15, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm uninvolved, but I can't help but noting that, per the GA criteria, "using consistent formatting [in citations] is not required" so long as the reviewer can identify the source. While the suggestions might be helpful nonetheless, the nominator shouldn't feel pressured to comply with every MOS nitpick: the "required standard" for citations at GA is actually quite low. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 16:13, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Indeed, and I did not press this very point at the last review I did (here), just the other day. But we really ought to aim as a minimum at conformity with MOS:NOTES, WP:ISBNs etc – as we should in all articles. Tim riley talk 17:21, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for the suggestions, @Tim riley:! I hope I've dealt with all the citation issues now.--Brett (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)


#### Prose
Good. I have only a few minor points to raise about the text of the article.

Lead
Between refs 1 and 2 the article slips between two quite different citation styles, and we see the same later in the article. User:Extraordinary Writ rightly remarks above that internal consistency of citation style is not a specific requirement at GA level, but it looks pretty daft to have two competing styles in the one article.
History of the concept in English
Weber argues – a household name among grammarians, I don't doubt, but he could do with a forename and a bit of context in a general encyclopaedia article, to tell us who he is or where he wrote it. "The linguistics scholar David Weber..." or "In a 2012 article on the subject David Weber..." or some such.
He goes on to say that – a bit wordy? Would "He adds" suffice?
I got muddled with the quotation marks in The word preposition is from "Latin praepositionem (nominative praepositio) "a putting before, a prefixing," noun of action from past-participle stem of praeponere "put before," – there are five lots, and one expects an even number.
Some grammarians, however –  this is the first of four "howevers", all four of which could, in my view, with advantage be disposed of. Howevers seldom help the prose, I find, though you are of course entirely at liberty to disagree.
The Cambridge grammar of the English Language – strange capitalisation. You give it the full ulc later, and add (CGEL), which perhaps ought to be added at first mention, here.
The category of preposition vs other lexical categories
The Manual of Style bids us eschew definite articles at the start of headers when practicable, which I think it is here, and in the next main section header. I don't press the point, but pray ponder.
Prepositions vs verbs
verbs conjugate, and prepositions don't - MOS:N'T
Intransitive prepositions vs adverbs
but many don't – ditto
Prepositions vs complementizers
A complementizer, is the modern term – unexpected comma
there's no difference in meaning – MOS:N'T
Noun phrase complements
nominative case pronouns as part of a coordinated pair of prepositional objects have occurred in respected works of literature and are actually more characteristic of educated varieties of English than of less educated varieties.[20] – That's a helluva statement for one citation, especially one not attributed inline. I think you could get away with saying "…according to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage."
They're building new school isn't grammatical because it's lacking… – MOS:N'T x 2.
Fronting
This section is uncited.
Stranding
And so is this one.
Those are my few meagre gleanings. I enjoyed this article, and learned not a little from it, though I don't pretend to have absorbed it in toto. For a highly technical article it is surprisingly easy to read and I don't see how the prose could be bettered. If the referencing can be further tidied up (I shan't press the matter further here) I don't see why the article shouldn't go on to FAC. But for now, I leave it to you to consider the above few points before I proceed to the ribbon-cutting ceremony. – Tim riley talk 19:28, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, @Tim riley: for your careful editing and keen eye! I believe I've addressed all the points you've made except for the citation point. I don't see the difference you mention between the style of [1] and [2]. Sorry if I'm missing something obvious!--Brett (talk) 21:30, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't want to make a production number of this, but ref 1 gives the page number inline (in what I think of as an academic style); ref 2 doesn't give the page number at all; some other page numbers are given in the References section rather than in inline. Where page numbers are given – sometimes in References, sometimes inline, they vary between a single page – which is helpful to your reader – and 15 or so pages – which is decidedly unhelpful: the whole point of citations is to enable readers to check your source, which is not easy if you expect them to wade through 15 pages to find it. And how are they to check e.g. refs 4 a–e without any page numbers? But I think the referencing just about complies with the requirements of WP:V and so scrapes through for GA criterion 2. And as all else is admirable…


### Overall summary
GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality: 

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists: 

Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources: 
Broad and evidently authoritative sources
B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary: 
Just about passes muster.
C. No original research: 

Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects: 

B. Focused: 

Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias: 

Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc: 

Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
Well illustrated, if that's quite the word, with helpful diagrams and tables. No copyright issues. 
Overall:
Pass or Fail: 

The article seems to me an excellent exposition of its subject, comprehensible to the lay person without compromising precision and comprehensiveness. If the referencing is given further attention I don't see why this article shouldn't be a successful candidate for FA in due course. Tim riley talk 08:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Examples 27.34.22.130 (talk) 03:36, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Several sections include specific jargon without explanation or link. Meanings can be drawn from context, but this is poor form. This includes abbreviations or acronyms used in analysis sections (PP, VP, and so on). BluejayBlackburn (talk) 16:44, 23 May 2025 (UTC)