1. Particle paths Haj Ross Department of Linguistics and Technical Communication University of North Texas http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/hajpapers.html haj@unt.edu CUNY Graduate Center. April 11, 2013. o. Olden times. While particles are described in traditional grammars in the early twentieth century, it seems that Bruce Fraser’s 1965 MIT dissertation was the first extended study of them in the generative literature. What he called particle verbs were verb stems followed by a subset of prepositions, prepositions which could also appear after the NP which followed the verb (Pick up that dog! ~ Pick that dog up!). True prepositions (P true ) cannot combine with verbs in this way: some examples of P true are: above, after, among, at, before, below, beside, between, for, from, into, of, onto, upon, with – these can never follow a direct object. Most prepositions are P true . 1. What particles (Part) are: the following subset of 16 spatial prepositions, PLUS three non-prepositional adverbs (?), away, back, and forth. Here is the whole gang: up/down, in/out, on/off, over/under, through, by, past, to, about, across, along, around, away, back, forth 2. Where else particles can be found There are three other contexts in which just particles are to be found (though not all 19 occur in each): a. After verbs with no direct objects: poop out, sally forth, chatter away b. Between verbs and their prepositional objects: boil down to, put up with c. As left adjuncts of spatial (and some temporal) PP’s (a discovery of Roger Levi, a Stanford student): in behind the shed, off under the bridge, up through the weekend, on until noon 3. Particle paths All speakers allow PARTICLE PATHS (Ppths) – sequences of at least 2 particles in (2c) environments [Particles will be boldfaced]: a. down in under the bed, out off with his pals, down out in the valley, up around by the statue b. Many can find some that are 3 particles long: up around over by the PO, up in along through the tunnel. If these seem outlandish to you, may I suggest that you take a two-particle path that you like and try adding back to the beginning, e.g., back down in under the bed, back up around by the statue. For unknown reasons, back seems to be the best first particle in particle paths, especially when it means “again.” c. Some speakers, with the help of back, can stretch a Ppth to length 4: %back up in around behind the stove. I know of no convincing example of length 5. d. NB: when trying to construct Ppths, make sure your examples are sentence-initial, or that they follow NP’s. Because in an example like freak back out in around behind the church, while there are four particles in sequence, it is clear that they form two subsequences: back is forming a length-2 Ppth with the out of freak out, and in around is a length-2 Ppth that modifies behind. 4. Fraser’s central discovery: PREPOSITIONAL OBJECT ZAP (POZ) Fraser postulated two deletion rules, which delete anaphoric proforms after certain spatial and temporal prepositions. The first deletes PP’s under identity after the following spatial prepositional complexes: (1) along with, alongside of, inside of, into, off of, onto, out of, out through, outside of