New Preposition Combinations

Lotus · Post by **Lotus** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:22 am

When reading Jean Yates' The Ins and Outs of Prepositions I was reminded of an interesting phenomenon. Prepositons have a habit of showing up in new expressions all the time. Her examples of new phrases come from computer technology and include: boot up, key in, or log on. My query is this. How do we decide which preposition to use in any one of these new phrases when we create them? Any ideas?

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:32 am

I suppose that there was an element of chance in it being "boot it up" and not "boot it on" although "boot up" has a sporty ring about it.

Mostly I'd imagine there's either an analogy with existing PVs by virtue of some core meaning of the particle (turn on, switch on, be on, log on) or with Latinate equivalents ("enter the data" suggests "key in the data").

In other words, I have absolutely no idea.

A little quibble: the particles you mention are not prepositions in the situations you give.

Lotus · Post by **Lotus** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:21 am

JuanTwoThree wrote:A little quibble: the particles you mention are not prepositions in the situations you give.

You're right; these fall more into the territory of phrasal verbs. Yate's examples, not mine. Still, why these particular particles?

Mostly I'd imagine there's either an analogy with existing PVs by virtue of some core meaning of the particle... or with Latinate equivalents...

Yes, of course, but most NESs don't make any conscious connection like this when they cobble together another phrase to express this new and amazing thing they are doing with their computer, do they? The same thing happens in any other discipline, of course, and people are just as unlikely to give their new phrases any serious thought, unless they are looking to publish something. It seems that new phrases just crop up in the midst of what makes them. So, what makes any one preposition (or particle) feel like the right one to use? Do we go with our gut, and of so, what drives it, or is there something else at work? I wondered if it has something to do with words that normally collocate with the particle, but it seems very unlikely that anyone would run through a mental list of all possible collocates before deciding on their new term. Then again, maybe most people aren't as lazy as I think.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:57 am

JuanTwoThree wrote:I suppose that there was an element of chance in it being "boot it up" and not "boot it on" although "boot up" has a sporty ring about it.

Based on "get it up and running"?

key in = from ledgers: write in/enter (in)?

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:11 am

Or trying to get a ball into the air.

As I say, I really have no idea.

Presumably what goes around comes around. You might ask what made the pioneers of electricity decide that when they made a circuit connecting the power source to the device that it was "on" . You can try and imagine some mutton-chopped inventor pulling down some switch, like in Frankenstein films, but I can't see any particular on-ness about the situation. Though I can see the through-ness of "I'm putting you through" with a late Victorian young lady sitting in front of the box and plugs of a primitive telephone exchange.

Making sense of phrasal verbs through their particles is some kind of Holy Grail, isn't it? I don't think there's an answer to your question.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:16 am

JuanTwoThree wrote:I suppose that there was an element of chance in it being "boot it up" and not "boot it on" although "boot up" has a sporty ring about it.

Based on "get it up and running"?

key in = from ledgers: write in/enter (in)?

Yes, of course, but most NESs don't make any conscious connection like this when they cobble together another phrase to express this new and amazing thing they are doing with their computer, do they?

Sometimes they do, consciously or other.

shopped out from tired out, for example

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:24 am

Many moons ago in my Computer Science class, my teacher said that the use of boot in computing originates from the phrase to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Basically when you turn the computer on, the "boot(strap)" program kicks in and starts the system. So your PC "pulls itself up by its own bootstrap", as it were.

So maybe boot up is some kind of contraction of the original phrase.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:59 pm

So your PC "pulls itself up by its own bootstrap", as it were.

So why not "let your computer boot itself up" and not "(you) boot up the computer"?

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:18 pm

Maybe because you have to make it happen by pressing a button, or perhaps simply because boot up the computer is more succinct than let your computer boot itself up. After all, it's possible to say the computer's booting up; adding itself would sound a bit wordy to me.

I know Google searches are a bit rough and ready, but boot itself up returns 2,260 hits while boot up returns 2,020,000. Anyway, according to Wikipedia, booting is short for bootstrapping. It give another explanation for the origin of the term, albeit one that lacks citations.

Also bear in mind that the term would have been coined by computer geeks, not language geeks

Lotus · Post by **Lotus** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:57 am

Making sense of phrasal verbs through their particles is some kind of Holy Grail, isn't it? I don't think there's an answer to your question.

Actually, JTT, I'm not looking to make sense of the phrases through their particles. I'm just wondering why that particular particle, instead of another one?

Also bear in mind that the term would have been coined by computer geeks, not language geeks.

This isn't the issue, though, Lolwhites. Language is always coined by regular people going about their regular jobs, even "mutton-chopped inventors". But what is the reason for the particular choices they make?

Prepositions and particles aren't really totally capricious. If you don't mind a bit of etymology and Latin/Greek foundations, Seth Lindstromberg does a pretty good job of stringing it all together. (English Prepositions Explained - a rather pretentious title, but he does a good job.) But most people don't have any idea what Latin or Greek words may be the genesis of their words, and they don't care. So, what really dictates what particles they use in new phrasal verbs, or what prepositions they use in new prepositional phrases?

I can't agree that there's no answer to this question. Even if "It just sounds right" is all the answer I can hope to find, I'll still want to know why it sounds right.

Quote:
Yes, of course, but most NESs don't make any conscious connection like this when they cobble together another phrase to express this new and amazing thing they are doing with their computer, do they?

Sometimes they do, consciously or other.

shopped out from tired out, for example

Excellent point, Metal. Can you think of any other examples?

Thank you all for playing.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:55 am

It's always possible to find some consistencies with prepositions in phrasal verbs, but there are so many arbitrary looking ones that one starts to wonder if the consistencies aren't just coincidences, in the same way as if you throw a dice often enough you'll get the same number four times in a row.

Where's the "on-ness" in get on with or the "up-ness" in beat up? Where was the "into-ness" when the frog was turned into a prince? I think sometimes things "just sound right" because we're so used to hearing them.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:26 pm

My semi-educated guess would be that most if not almost all new coinings are by analogy with existing combos. So "morph into" is an obvious choice given "turn into" . Which clearly doesn't answer that question as to why "turn into" is "into" in the first place, which I think will remain a mystery, unless I'm much mistaken (which I am).

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:34 pm

Where's the "on-ness" in get on with

It's direction:

move on
go on
(or just simple) On!

Where was the "into-ness" when the frog was turned into a prince?

into - preposition of movement

go from this place into that one
change from this thing into that one
from this stage into that one

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:02 am

I can just about see how into might work, but I have to say that on doesn't convince me. I don't see a "direction" in get on with to mean "have a good relationship", much less have the same "on-ness" as move on or go on, and how come if you "get on" well enough with someone you might end up getting off with them?

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:42 am

There's something of the chicken and the egg. You can justify "go on" on the basis of "move on" or vice versa.

You can posit an ur-PV from which the other ones come: Let's say for simpicity that its "go on" but it doesn't answer the question: why the shift in meaning from "on=in contact with a line or a plane" to "on= movement to another place/progress"?

I can see the metaphor of clothes or magic as perhaps being where those intos come from. You change into new clothes and you are "in" them so you get into a role. You can be changed into a frog and the real you is in the frog's skin. From that starting point you get to "turn into" "transform into" etc. Bear in mind that this is prepositional and these prepositional phrasal verbs (if indeed they are phrasal verbs) are probably less opaque that the true PVs.

Judging by the distribution of PVs or something like them across Northern Europe in Germanic languages, I doubt if we'll ever know the reasoning for these combinations. Though it's fun to try.