ago

[Lachlan Mackenzie]

To me, ago is a portmanteau form for "before now", used when
you want to specify the period of time that has elasped
between the event being portrayed and the moment of speech.
So 2 analyses are possible: as an adverb with an obligatory
degree specifier/premodifier (which is unusual, possibly
unique in the langauge) or as a postposition, which is also
unusual. (As for other postpositions in English, some people
regard "genitive" 's as an enclitic postposition, and
notwithstanding can occur both as preposition and
postposition.) The fact that both analyses are rather
unusual may be connected with the status of ago as having
undergone grammaticalization from a participle of go –
the other West European languages I know, with one
exception, all have equivalents that are derived from or
identical to verb forms: a week ago is in Dutch een week
geleden (from an archaic sense of the past participle of
lijden, "pass"), French il y a une semaine (il y a "there
is"), Spanish hace una semana (hace "it makes"), Italian una
settimana fa (fa "it makes"). Only German uses a
preposition, vor einer Woche, literally "before a week", as
though the notion of “before” has somehow been
transferred to what in English is the premodifier of ago.

As for what looks like stranding, I think that on the
analysis of ago as an adverb, you can question the
premodifier and put it in clause-initial position, or you
can take the adverb along:

1a.     How long was that ago?
1b.     How long was that before now?

2a.     How long ago was that?
2b.     How long before now was that?

Personally, I don’t see any reason to regard either
away or apart as postpositions. In far away and far apart,
far surely indicates the extent of the "awayness" or the
separation rather than being in any way the complement of
away or apart. Further evidence is surely that both away and
apart can themselves be complemented by prepositional
phrases with from as in far away from home, well apart from
each other; it’s hard for me to see how this would
square with analysing them as postpositions. So I would see
away and apart as adverbs, and they seem to allow the same
as ago:

3a.     How many miles does he live away (from here)?
3b.     How many miles away (from here) does he live?

4a.     How many miles do they live apart (from each other)?
4b.     How many miles apart (from each other) do they live?

My preference seems to go with complexity: if you include
the complement from-phrase, I prefer the first of each pair;
if you don’t, I prefer the second.

All in all, I conclude that we must see all three, away,
apart and ago as adverbs, with ago unusually requiring
premodification (for understandable historical reasons), and
with away and apart permitting an optional complement
prepositional phrase with “from”.

Lachlan Mackenzie
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam