Строй современного английского языка

arises, what part of speech is after? If it can only function as a preposition and as a conjunction, this would mean that it is neither the one nor the other.

Another way is to say that after the preposition and after the conjunction are homonyms. This will not do either, since homonymy, by definition, supposes complete difference of meaning, as between saw 'instrument for sawing' and saw 'old saying', whereas the meaning of after the preposition and after the conjunction is absolutely the same.

These considerations apply as well to the words before and since, and here the question is further complicated by the fact that they can also be adverbs. ¹

The difficulty with the word after would be overcome if we were to unite prepositions and conjunctions into one part of speech (as hinted above, p. 33), which would then have to be given a new name. The difference between what we now call the preposition after and the conjunction would then be reduced to different syntactical uses of one word. But the difficulty with the adverbs and preposition-conjunctions before and since would not be solved by this: it would not do to say that an adverb and a word uniting the qualities of preposition and conjunction are the same word.

A fully convincing solution of this problem has yet to be found.

As to the relation between prepositions, co-ordinating conjunctions, and subordinating conjunctions, it must be said that on the ground of the peculiarities which have been pointed out a completely different treatment of the three types of words is possible. An idea to this effect was put forward by the French scholar L. Tesnière in a book on general principles of syntax. Tesnière classes what are usually called co-ordinating conjunctions as a type for itself: he calls them "jonctifs" (that is, junctives), whereas prepositions and what we call subordinating conjunctions come together under the name of "translatifs" (translatives) and are distinguished from each other as subclasses of this large class: prepositions are called "translatifs, premier degré" (translatives, first degree) and subordinating conjunctions, "translatifs, second degré" (second degree).² This is quite natural in a book on syntax, in which things are looked at from a syntactical angle and words classified according to their functions in the sentence.

It should also be noted that the difference between prepositions and conjunctions is much less pronounced in Modern English than in Russian, where prepositions are closely connected with cases, while conjunctions have nothing whatever to do with them. In English, with its almost complete absence of cases, this difference be-

¹ After is also an adverb in the phrase ever alter.

² L, Tesnière, Elements de syntaxe structural, 1959, pp. 386—387,

Prepositions and Conjunctions . 159

tween prepositions and conjunctions is very much obliterated. While in Russian the substitution of a conjunction for a preposition makes jt necessary to change the case of the following noun, in English 00 such change is necessary or, indeed, possible. So the distinction between preposition and conjunction is based here only on semantic criteria and, also, on the use of these words in other contexts, where they are not interchangeable.

In discussing prepositions, we noted that there are in English, as well as in Russian and in other languages, certain phrases which cannot be termed prepositions, since they are not words, but which are similar to prepositions in meaning and in syntactical function. The same is true of conjunctions. A certain number of phrases (consisting of two or three words) are similar in meaning and in function to conjunctions. Among them we can quote such phrases as in order that, as soon as, as long as, notwithstanding that, etc. Just as prepositional phrases, these will be analysed in a special chapter in Syntax (see p. 179 ff.).

Download 1.77 Mb.

Share with your friends: