I lately lost a preposition

[Damien Hall]

On the analysis of *B.A.* in

He proceeded B.A.

as a predicative and the whole construction as a calque on Latin, Arnold wrote:

> i'm afraid that what we need now is someone familiar with the customs
> of Oxbridge and the relevant texts.

I haven't had time to do a proper search, of course, but since I'm not going to
have the time in the foreseeable, here are the beginnings of one!

The Statutes and Regulations of the University of Oxford and the Statutes and
Ordinances of the University of Cambridge are both available online:

http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/statutes/
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/

- For Oxford, the whole text is searchable.  A search on *proceed* (which also
searches for *proceeds*) brings up no relevant hits, though:  there are only 14
to begin with and none of them seems to be in the section dealing with getting
degrees (though I've only looked at the summary page).

- For Cambridge, the whole text doesn't seem to be searchable (at a first look):
 it's broken down into PDFs by section and each of them can of course be
searched separately.  Chapter V, 'B.A. Degree and M.A. Degree', throws up the
following:

'On completing the requisite number of terms, a student shall be qualified to
proceed to the degree of Bachelor of Arts if not earlier than the last but one
of the terms that the student needs for that degree he or she has obtained
honours as follows ...'

=====================

'On completing the requisite number of terms,(fn1) a student who has obtained
honours as prescribed in Regulation 2 earlier than the last but one of the
terms needed for the degree of Bachelor of Arts shall be qualified to proceed
to that degree ...'

=====================

'... provided that a student who elects to proceed to the LL.M. Degree shall not
also be entitled to proceed to the B.A. Degree ...'

=====================

'[a candidate] shall be deemed to be qualified to proceed to that degree at the
appropriate Congregation if the Chairman of the Examiners for that examination,
after consulting the Examiners concerned, has informed the Registrary
sufficiently in advance of the Congregation that it is certain that the name of
the student will be included in the class-list either in one of the classes or
under the heading ‘Declared to have deserved honours’.'

The first three seem to show that Cambridge at least does not, or does not any
longer, use *proceed* with a bare NP complement for degrees:  they use
*proceed* + preposition + *the (X) Degree*.  In general, they use *proceed* with
a preposition and a DP:  cf the fourth example, 'proceed to that degree'.

I still think, thougn, that if we looked in older official texts of at least
these Universities we would find *proceed* + bare NP for the degree.  The
Statute versions searchable online are of course the latest ones:  for
Cambridge the whole text dates from 2007;  for Oxford, at least the part
dealing with Degrees, Diplomas and Certificates dates from 2002.  And, of
course, we could do with a more thorough search of even these most recent
texts.

Damien Hall
University of Pennsylvania

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