I lately lost a preposition

[LanDi Liu]

On Feb 6, 2008 2:28 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: I lately lost a preposition
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/5/2008 01:17 PM, LanDi Liu wrote:
> >On Feb 6, 2008 1:03 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >
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> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > > Subject:      Re: I lately lost a preposition
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > At 1/29/2008 08:33 PM, sagehen wrote:
> > > >More prepositions lost; this time on The World (BBC/WGBH) news
> program.
> > > Brit
> > > >newsreader used the expression "agree a sthg" twice,  rendering what
> I'd
> > > >have thought an intransitive verb transitive.  A minute or two later,
> th
> > > e
> > > >American newsreader used "agree" with /to/ or /with/  or /on/  (I
> don't
> > > >remember which as we usually do. Is this prepositionless "agree" now
> the
> > > >norm in Britain?
> > >
> > > I just wrote, in an email message but I would probably also in a
> > > letter, "I would want to make any agreed changes myself."  And I'm in
> > > America.
> >
> >
> >That's an adjectival use of "agreed", so totally different; it has no
> object
> >so it's not transitivized.
>
> I wondered.  Still, isn't it an alternative to "any agreed-to changes"?


Well, it certainly is dropping the preposition, but it is different than the
other examples in that "changes" is not the object of agreed.

Also, is the original construction a question of a non-transitive verb
becoming transitive, or a phrasal verb losing its particle?  Or given the
ambiguity between phrasal verbs and verbs that take preposition phrases as
objects, is this even a worthwhile question?

--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China

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