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Concept
Preposition stranding
Summary
Historically, grammarians have described preposition stranding or p-stranding as the syntactic construction in which a so-called stranded, hanging or dangling preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The term preposition stranding was coined in 1964, predated by stranded preposition in 1949. Linguists had previously identified such a construction as a sentence-terminal preposition or as a preposition at the end. This kind of construction is found in English, and more generally in other Germanic languages.
Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (two languages in the Niger–Congo family), and certain dialects of French spoken in North America.
P-stranding occurs in various syntactic contexts, including passive voice, wh-movement, and sluicing.
Wh-movement—which involves wh-words like who, what, when, where, why and how—is a syntactic dependency between a sentence-initial wh-word and the gap that it is associated with. Wh-movement can lead to P-stranding if the object of the preposition is moved to sentence-initial position, and the preposition is left behind. P-stranding from wh-movement is observed in English and Scandinavian languages. The more common alternative is called pied piping, a rule that prohibits separating a preposition from its object, for instances in Serbo-Croatian and Arabic languages. English and Dutch use both rules, providing the option of two constructions in these situations.
An open interrogative often takes the form of a wh- question (beginning with a word like what or who).
P-stranding in English allows the separation of the preposition from its object, while pied piping allows carrying the preposition along with the wh- object. From the below examples, we can see the two options.
Which town did you come from?
From which town did you come?
What are you talking about?
About what are you talking?
P-stranding in Danish is banned only if the wh-word is referring to nominative cases.
Official source
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