The 'Glaring' Place of Prepositions

Grammar, Rhetoric and the Scottish Codifiers

Bibliographic Data

ID3955425
AuthorsNuria Yáñez-Bouza (The University of Manchester), Nuria Yáñez‐bouza (0000-0001-5156-8235, University of Manchester, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume38
Issue3
Pages255-292
Publication date2011-10-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistoriographia Linguistica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0302-5160 • E-ISSN: 1569-9781
PublisherJohn Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1075/hl.38.3.01yan
OpenAlexW1967303606
LanguageEN
References cited27

This paper offers new insights into the 18th-century normative tradition, with special reference to the stigmatisation of preposition stranding. It brings to light the role of Scottish codifiers in contrast to English codifiers: works written by Scots contain more critical comments on the use of end-placed prepositions both quantitatively (in terms of frequency) and qualitatively (more semantic nuances and more condemnatory epithets). The semantic analysis of the data rules out the hypothesis that Scottish authors might have been particularly sensible towards this construction because of its nature as 'provincial English' or as a 'Scotticism'. Rather, the author suggests that it was the 'New Rhetoric' movement (1748-1793) in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment that played a vital role in its stigmatisation. The importance of rhetoric as a facet of 18th-century prescriptivism, complementary to grammar, is thus put under the spotlight

Context (archaeology · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Epithet · Grammar · Linguistics · Normative · Rhetoric · Scots · Scottish Enlightenment · Sociology · History · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies · Philosophy · Scottish History and National Identity

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