Digging (a) deeper (hole)

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:41 pm

So I'm thinking again about 'about' somewhat, and start wondering quite how many nouns, verbs and adjectives commonly go with it (beyond the limited selection available in most dictionaries). I crack out my two COBUILD Pattern Guides (to Verbs, and Nouns and Adjectives) and see that 'allegations about sthg' is possible. Looking back to my dictionaries, I confirm that 'allegations of sthg' is the focus, indeed to the total exclusion of even mentioning 'allegations about' (and a Google search shows that this is eighteen times more frequent than 'allegations about'). My questions then becomes, is there a difference in the 'somethings' that follow each of the prepositions...

Do you ever feel like giving up teaching?

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:11 pm

I'm not sure if I follow your question, but the relationship between prepositional objects and their prepositions is a form of complementation. The prepositional object determines the meaning of the preposition.

There is also a relationship between prepositions and verbs and adjectives that continues after the verb or adjective is changed to a noun.

accused of shoplifting -> accusations of shoplifting
think about the future -> thoughts about the future

"About" and "of" are actually quite similar in meaning. However, "allege" and "alleged" are somewhat unusual in that they form phrases differently than their noun form "allegations". My guess is that this is due to "allege" having a French origin. Damn those Frenchies and their non-conforming words.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 8:19 pm

Interestingly, the Oxford Collocations Dictionary mentions and gives an example for 'allegations about', but not 'allegations of'...presumably they view the latter as more advanced or something, and concentrate on/leave the former to their OALDE7.