[Corpora-List] adverbial 'behind'

Sat May 29 18:09:30 UTC 2010

Thanks indeed to you all!  And point taken about the syntactic status...
Re the 'behind' (preposition!) use in that particular example, is it 
standard English usage? I ask, because I am not at all familiar with it 
in British English.
I now understand 'behind' to mean something like 'because' (thanks to JC 
Khalifa, Linda Bawcome, E.Bashir).
My initial reaction of excitement was frustrated because I thought it 
looked like a case of an elusive aspectual perfective periphrasis which 
I've only found mentioned once in Visser (1973: 2211) who quoted the 
following: "E's behind telling tu Mr. Baker" (1892 Sarah Hewett, 
/Peasant Speech of Devon/, 21). Visser has this meaning the same as the 
perfective "after -ing" periphrasis of Irish English. Having lived a 
number of years in Devon, I must say that I never had the good fortune 
to come across any other occurrence of this particular turn of phrase...
Best,
Marc

On 29/05/2010 19:38, Ken Litkowski wrote:
> I'd agree with Jim. At the preposition project web page 
> <http://www.clres.com/cgi-bin/onlineTPP/find_prep.cgi>, the applicable 
> definition would, IMHO, be "controlling or responsible for (an event 
> or plan)". Since it is common to have a phrase like "I left my 
> daughter behind", the quote is somewhat poor English and tends to 
> evoke this adverbial sense. It's something of a garden path sentence. 
> Since "behind" doesn't go well with "lost", you have to do a double 
> take and then choose the preposition interpretation.
>
>     Ken
>
> Jim Fidelholtz wrote:
>> Hi, Marc,
>>
>> My initial reaction to your question was 'what adverb?', ie, that it 
>> is a preposition. With a bit more reflection, I'm a bit more 
>> convinced that it's more of a preposition than an adverb. Cf.
>>           They lost their daddy behind the barn. (or even: after the 
>> event, where I would interpret 'after' here as a preposition). 
>> Actually, such examples seem to me to point out the fuzziness of 
>> grammatical categories (*especially* where adverbs are concerned, and 
>> cf. also 'discourse markers', which in their historical development 
>> seem to progress syntactically in many cases towards adverb-like 
>> behavior).
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 8:48 AM, Marc FRYD 
>> <marc.fryd at univ-poitiers.fr <mailto:marc.fryd at univ-poitiers.fr>> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi everyone,
>>
>>     In the second episode of "The Wire," one of the characters says
>>     the following:
>>     "[I am] sorry they lost their daddy behind what happened". This
>>     is in reference to some kids losing their father after he was shot.
>>     Is anyone familiar with this particular usage of 'behind'?
>>
>>     Best,
>>     Marc
>>
>>
>>     -- 
>>     *Dr. Marc FRYD*
>>     Faculté des Lettres et des Langues
>>     Université de Poitiers
>>     95 avenue du Recteur Pineau
>>     86022, Poitiers, France
>>
>>     Tel. [33](0)5 49 45 48 11
>>     Mob. [33](0)6 76 28 18 50
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
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>>     Corpora at uib.no <mailto:Corpora at uib.no>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> James L. Fidelholtz
>> Posgrado en Ciencias del Lenguaje
>> Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
>> Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, MÉXICO
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>
> -- 
> Ken Litkowski                     TEL.: 301-482-0237
> CL Research                       EMAIL:ken at clres.com
> 9208 Gue Road                     Home Page:http://www.clres.com
> Damascus, MD 20872-1025 USA       Blog:http://www.clres.com/blog
>    

-- 
*Dr. Marc FRYD*
Faculté des Lettres et des Langues
Université de Poitiers
95 avenue du Recteur Pineau
86022, Poitiers, France

Tel. [33](0)5 49 45 48 11
Mob. [33](0)6 76 28 18 50
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