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Prepositions (or more generally, adpositions, see below) are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations (such as the English words in, under, toward) or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles (such as the English words of, for).^[1] In that the primary function is relational, a preposition typically combines with another constituent (called its complement) to form a prepositional phrase, relating the complement to the context in which the phrase occurs.

The word preposition comes from Latin, a language in which such a word is usually placed before its complement. (Thus it is pre-positioned.) English is another such language. In many languages (e.g. Urdu, Turkish, Hindi and Japanese), the words with this grammatical function come after, not before, the complement. Such words are then commonly called postpositions. Similarly, circumpositions consist of two parts that appear on both sides of the complement. The technical term used to refer collectively to prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions is adposition. Some linguists use the word "preposition" instead of "adposition" for all three cases.^[2]

The following examples illustrate some uses of English prepositional phrases:

• as an adjunct (locative, temporal, etc.) to a verb phrase
  • sleep throughout the winter
  • danced atop the tables for hours
• as an adjunct (locative, temporal, etc.) to a noun phrase
  • the weather in May
  • cheese from France with live bacteria
• as an adjunct (locative, temporal, etc.) to an adjective phrase
  • happy for them
  • sick until recently
• as the complement of a intransitive verb within a transitive structure
  • insist on staying home
  • dispose of unwanted items
• as the complement of a noun
  • a thirst for revenge
  • an amendment to the constitution
• as the complement of an adjective or adverb
  • attentive to their needs
  • separately from its neighbors
• as the complement of another preposition
  • until after supper
  • from beneath the bed

Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case markings, but adpositions are syntactic elements, while case markings are morphological elements.

Definitional issues[link]

Adpositions form a heterogeneous class, with boundaries that tend to overlap with other categories (like verbs, nouns, and adjectives). It is thus impossible to provide an absolute definition that picks out all and only the adpositions in every language. The following features, however, are often required of adpositions.

• An adposition prototypically combines syntactically with exactly one complement phrase, most often a noun phrase (or, in a different analysis, a determiner phrase). (In some analyses, an adposition need have no complement. See below.) In English, this is generally a noun (or something functioning as a noun, e.g., a gerund), called the object of the preposition, together with its attendant modifiers.
• An adposition establishes the grammatical relationship that links its complement to another word or phrase in the context. In English, it may also establish a semantic relationship, which may be spatial (in, on, under, ...), temporal (after, during, ...), or logical (via, ...) in nature. The World Atlas of Language Structures treats a word as an adposition if it takes a noun phrase as complement and indicates the grammatical or semantic relationship of that phrase to the verb in the containing clause.^[3]
• An adposition determines certain grammatical properties of its complement (e.g. its case). In English, the objects of prepositions are always in the objective case (where such case is available: i.e. pronouns). In Koine Greek, certain prepositions always take their objects in a certain case (e.g., ἐν always takes its object in the dative), and other prepositions may take their object in one of several cases, depending on the meaning of the preposition (e.g., διά takes its object in the genitive or in the accusative, depending on the meaning).
• Adpositions are non-inflecting (or "invariant"); i.e., they do not have paradigms of forms (for different tenses, cases, genders, etc.) in the same way as verbs, adjectives, and nouns in the same language. There are exceptions, though, for example in Celtic languages (see Inflected preposition).

Properties[link]

The following properties are characteristic of most adpositional systems.

• Adpositions are among the most frequently occurring words in languages that have them. For example, one frequency ranking for English word forms^[4] begins as follows (adpositions in bold):

the, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you, …

• The most common adpositions are single, monomorphemic words. According to the ranking cited above, for example, the most common English prepositions are the following:

on, in, to, by, for, with, at, of, from, as, …

• Adpositions form a closed class of lexical items and cannot be productively derived from words of other categories.

Stranding[link]

Preposition stranding is a syntactic construct in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately next to its object. For example: Who did you give it to? where to refers to who, which is placed at the beginning of the sentence because it is an interrogative word. The above sentence is much more common and natural than the equivalent sentence without stranding: To who(m) did you give it? Preposition stranding is most commonly found in English,^[5] as well as North Germanic languages such as Swedish. The existence of preposition stranding in German and Dutch is debated. Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (languages of the Niger–Congo) and the dialects of some North American French speakers.

Stranding and English prescriptivism[link]

Students are commonly taught that prepositions cannot end a sentence, although there is no rule prohibiting that use.^[6][7] Winston Churchill is said to have written, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put,"^[7] illustrating the awkwardness that would result from a rule against the use of terminal prepositions. However, the attribution of this quote to Churchill is almost certainly apocryphal;^[8] furthermore, it is also wrong because up is not a preposition in that sentence at all. A correct rearrangement would be “This is the sort of English with which I will not put up” (preposition in bold), which still sounds awkward. Another rearrangement would be "This is the sort of English which I will not put up with"; here again, the "with" and "up" which might be construed as prepositions are not prepositions but are in fact part of the verb "put up with".^[9]

Classification[link]

Adpositions can be organized into subclasses according to various criteria. These can be based on directly observable properties (such as the adposition's form or its position in the sentence) or on less visible properties (such as the adposition's meaning or function in the context at hand).

Simple vs complex[link]

Simple adpositions consist of a single word, while complex adpositions consist of a group of words that act as one unit. Some examples of complex prepositions in English are:

• in spite of, with respect to, except for, by dint of, next to

The boundary between simple and complex adpositions is not clear-cut and for the most part arbitrary. Many simple adpositions are derived from complex forms (e.g. with + in → within, by + side → beside) through grammaticalization. This change takes time, and during the transitional stages the adposition acts in some ways like a single word, and in other ways like a multi-word unit. For example, current German orthographic conventions recognize the indeterminate status of the following adpositions, allowing two spellings:^[10]

• anstelle / an Stelle ("instead of"), aufgrund / auf Grund ("because of"), mithilfe / mit Hilfe ("thanks to"), zugunsten / zu Gunsten ("in favor of"), zuungunsten / zu Ungunsten ("to the disadvantage of"), zulasten / zu Lasten ("at the expense of")

The boundary between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is also a fuzzy one. For English, this involves structures of the form "preposition + (article) + noun + preposition". Many sequences in English, such as in front of, that are traditionally regarded as prepositional phrases are not so regarded by linguists.^[11] The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is "frozen" enough to be considered a complex preposition in English:

• It contains a word that cannot be used in any other context: by dint of, in lieu of.
• The first preposition cannot be replaced: with a view to but not *for/without a view to
• It is impossible to insert an article, or to use a different article: on *an/*the account of, for the/*a sake of
• The range of possible adjectives is very limited: in great favor of, but not *in helpful favor of
• The number of the noun cannot be changed: by virtue/*virtues of
• It is impossible to use a possessive determiner: in spite of him, not *in his spite

Complex prepositions develop through the grammaticalization of commonly used free combinations. This is an ongoing process that introduces new prepositions into English.^[12]

Classification by position[link]

The position of an adposition with respect to its complement allows the following subclasses to be defined:

• A preposition precedes its complement to form a prepositional phrase.

German: auf dem Tisch, French: sur la table, Polish: na stole ("on the table")

• A postposition follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase.

Chinese: 桌子上 zhuō zi shàng (lit. "table on"), Finnish: (minun) kanssani (lit. "my with"), Turkish: benimle (or "benim ile"), Latin: mecum (both lit. "me with"), English: three days ago

The two terms are more commonly used than the general adposition. Whether a language has primarily prepositions or postpositions is seen as an important aspect of its typological classification, correlated with many other properties of the language.

It is usually straightforward to establish whether an adposition precedes or follows its complement. In some cases, the complement may not appear in a typical position. For example, in preposition stranding constructions, the complement appears before the preposition:

• {How much money} did you say the guy wanted to sell us the car for?
• She's going to the Bahamas? {Who} with?

In other cases, the complement of the adposition is absent:

• I'm going to the park. Do you want to come with?
• French: Il fait trop froid, je ne suis pas habillée pour. ("It's too cold, I'm not dressed for [the situation].")

The adpositions in the examples are generally still considered prepositions because when they form a phrase with the complement (in more ordinary constructions), they must appear first.

Some adpositions can appear on either side of their complement; these can be called ambipositions (Reindl 2001, Libert 2006):

• He slept {through the whole night}/{the whole night through}.
• German: {meiner Meinung nach}/{nach meiner Meinung} ("in my opinion")

An ambiposition entlang (along). It can be put before or after the noun related to it (but with different noun cases attached to it).

die Straße entlang

entlang der Straße

along the road

Another adposition surrounds its complement, called a circumposition:

• A circumposition has two parts, which surround the complement to form a circumpositional phrase.
  • English: from now on
  • Dutch: naar het einde toe ("towards the end", lit. "to the end to")
  • Mandarin: 從 冰箱 裡 cóng bīngxīang lǐ ("from the inside of the refrigerator", lit. "from refrigerator inside")
  • French: à un détail près ("except for one detail", lit. "at one detail near")

"Circumposition" can be a useful descriptive term, though most circumpositional phrases can be broken down into a more hierarchical structure, or given a different analysis altogether. For example, the Mandarin example above could be analyzed as a prepositional phrase headed by cóng ("from"), taking the postpositional phrase bīngxīang lǐ ("refrigerator inside") as its complement. Alternatively, the cóng may be analyzed as not a preposition at all (see the section below regarding coverbs).

• An inposition is an adposition between constituents of a complex complement.^[13]
• Ambiposition is sometimes used for an adposition that can function as either a preposition or a postposition.^[14]

Melis (2003) proposes the descriptive term interposition for adpositions in the structures such as the following:

• word for word, page upon page, (French) coup sur coup (one after another, repeatedly), (Russian) друг с другом (with each other)

An interposition is not an adposition which appears inside its complement as the two nouns do not form a single phrase (there is no *word word or *page page). Examples of actually interposed adpositions can be found in Latin (e.g. summa cum laude, lit. "highest with praise"). But they are always related to a more basic prepositional structure.

Classification by complement[link]

Although noun phrases are the most typical complements, adpositions can in fact combine with a variety of syntactic categories, much like verbs.

• noun phrases: It was on {the table}.
• adpositional phrases: Come out from {under the bed}.
• adjectives and adjective phrases: The scene went from {blindingly bright} to {pitch black}.
• adverbs or adverb phrases: I worked there until {recently}
• infinitival or participial verb phrases: Let's think about {solving this problem}.
• nominal clauses: We can't agree on {whether to have children or not}
• full sentences (see Conjunctions below)

Also like verbs, adpositions can appear without a complement; see Adverbs below.

Some adpositions could be described as combining with two complements:

• {With Sammy president}, we can all come out of hiding again.
• {For Sammy to become president}, they'd have to seriously modify the Constitution.

It is more commonly assumed, however, that Sammy and the following predicate first forms a “small clause”, which then becomes the single complement of the preposition. (In the first example above, a word (such as as) may be considered to be elided, which, if present, would clarify the grammatical relationship.)

Semantic classification[link]

Adpositions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relations between their complement and the rest of the context. The following list is not an exhaustive classification:

• spatial relations: location (inclusion, exclusion, proximity), direction (origin, path, endpoint)
• temporal relations
• comparison: equality, opposition, price, rate
• content: source, material, subject matter
• agent
• instrument, means, manner
• cause, purpose
• Reference

Most common adpositions are highly polysemous, and much research is devoted to the description and explanation of the various interconnected meanings of particular adpositions. In many cases a primary, spatial meaning can be identified, which is then extended to non-spatial uses by metaphorical or other processes.

In some contexts, adpositions appear in contexts where their semantic contribution is minimal, perhaps altogether absent. Such adpositions are sometimes referred to as functional or case-marking adpositions, and they are lexically selected by another element in the construction, or fixed by the construction as a whole.

• English: dispense with formalities, listen to my advice, good at mathematics
• Russian: otvechat' na vopros (lit. "answer on the question"), obvinenie v obmane ("accusation in [i.e. of] fraud")
• Spanish: soñar con ganar el título ("dream with [i.e. about] winning the title"), consistir en dos grupos ("consist in [i.e. of] two groups")

It is usually possible to find some semantic motivation for the choice of a given adposition, but it is generally impossible to explain why other semantically motivated adpositions are excluded in the same context. The selection of the correct adposition in these cases is a matter of syntactic well-formedness.

Subclasses of spatial adpositions[link]

Spatial adpositions can be divided into two main classes, namely directional and static ones. A directional adposition usually involves motion along a path over time, but can also denote a non-temporal path. Examples of directional adpositions include to, from, towards, into, along and through.

• Bob went to the store. (movement over time)
• A path into the woods. (non-temporal path)
• The fog extended from London to Paris. (non-temporal path)

A static adposition normally does not involve movement. Examples of these include at, in, on, beside, behind, under and above.

• Bob is at the store.

Directional adpositions differ from static ones in that they normally can't combine with a copula to yield a predicate, though there are some exceptions to this, as in Bob is from Australia, which may perhaps be thought of as special uses.

• Fine: Bob is in his bedroom. (in is static)
• Bad: *Bob is to his bedroom. (to is directional)

Directional spatial adpositions can only combine with verbs that involve motion; static prepositions can combine with other verbs as well.

• Fine: Bob is lying down in his bedroom.
• Bad: *Bob is lying down into/from his bedroom.

When a static adposition combines with a motion verb, it sometimes takes on a directional meaning. The following sentence can either mean that Bob jumped around in the water, or else that he jumped so that he ended up in the water.

• Bob jumped in the water.

In some languages, directional adpositions govern a different case on their complement than static ones. These are known as casally modulated prepositions. For example, in German, directional adpositions govern accusative while static ones govern dative. Adpositions that are ambiguous between directional and static interpretations govern accusative when they are interpreted as directional, and dative when they are interpreted as static.

• in seinem Zimmer (in his-DATIVE room) "in his room" (static)
• in sein Zimmer (in his-ACCUSATIVE room) "into his room" (directional)

Directional adpositions can be further divided into telic ones and atelic ones. To, into and across are telic: they involve movement all the way to the endpoint denoted by their complement. Atelic ones include towards and along. When telic adpositions combine with a motion verb, the result is a telic verb phrase. Atelic adpositions give rise to atelic verb phrases when so combined.^[15]

Static adpositions can be further subdivided into projective and non-projective ones. A non-projective static adposition is one whose meaning can be determined by inspecting the meaning of its complement and the meaning of the preposition itself. A projective static adposition requires, in addition, a perspective or point of view. If I say that Bob is behind the rock, you need to know where I am to know on which side of the rock Bob is supposed to be. If I say that your pen is to the left of my book, you also need to know what my point of view is. No such point of view is required in the interpretation of sentences like your pen is on the desk. Projective static prepositions can sometimes take the complement itself as "point of view," if this provides us with certain information. For example, a house normally has a front and a back, so a sentence like the following is actually ambiguous between two readings: one has it that Bob is at the back of the house; the other has it that Bob is on the other side of the house, with respect to the speaker's point of view.

• Bob is behind the house.

A similar effect can be observed with left of, given that objects that have fronts and backs can also be ascribed lefts and rights. The sentence, My keys are to the left of the phone, can either mean that they are on the speaker's left of the phone, or on the phone's left of the phone.^[16]

Classification by grammatical function[link]

Particular uses of adpositions can be classified according to the function of the adpositional phrase in the sentence.

• Modification
  • adverb-like

    The athlete ran {across the goal line}.

  • adjective-like
    • attributively

      A road trip {with children} is not the most relaxing vacation.

  • in the predicate position

    The key is {under the plastic rock}.

• Syntactic functions
  • complement

    Let's dispense with the formalities.

    Here the words dispense and with complement one another, functioning as a unit to mean forego, and they share the direct object (the formalities). The verb dispense would not have this meaning without the word with to complement it.

    {In the cellar} was chosen as the best place to hide the bodies.

Adpositional languages typically single out a particular adposition for the following special functions:

• marking possession
• marking the agent in the passive construction
• marking the beneficiary role in transfer relations

Overlaps with other categories[link]

Adverbs[link]

There are many similarities in form between adpositions and adverbs. Some adverbs are clearly derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement, and some prepositions have adverb-like uses with no complement:

• {down the stairs}/downstairs, {under the ground}/underground.
• {inside (the house)}, {aboard (the plane)}, {underneath (the surface)}

It is possible to treat all of these adverbs as intransitive prepositions, as opposed to transitive prepositions, which select a complement (just like transitive vs intransitive verbs). This analysis^[17] could also be extended to other adverbs, even those that cannot be used as "ordinary" prepositions with a nominal complement:

• here, there, abroad, downtown, afterwards, …

A more conservative approach is to say simply that adverbs and adpositional phrases share many common functions.

Particles[link]

Phrasal verbs in English are composed of a verb and a "particle" that also looks like an intransitive preposition. The same can be said for the separable verb prefixes found in Dutch and German.

• give up, look out, sleep in, carry on, come to
• Dutch: opbellen ("to call (by phone)"), aanbieden ("to offer"), voorstellen ("to propose")
• German: einkaufen ("to purchase"), aussehen ("to resemble"), anbieten ("to offer")

Although these elements have the same lexical form as prepositions, in many cases they do not have relational semantics, and there is no "missing" complement whose identity can be recovered from the context.

Conjunctions[link]

The set of adpositions overlaps with the set of subordinating conjunctions (or complementizers):

• (preposition) before/after/since the end of the summer
• (conjunction) before/after/since the summer ended
• (preposition) It looks like another rainy day
• (conjunction) It looks like it's going to rain again today

All of these words can be treated as prepositions if we extend the definition to allow clausal complements. This treatment could be extended further to conjunctions that are never used as ordinary prepositions:

• unless they surrender, although time is almost up, while you were on the phone

Coverbs[link]

In some languages, the role of adpositions is served by coverbs, words that are lexically verbs, but are generally used to convey the meaning of adpositions.

For instance, whether prepositions exist in Chinese is sometimes considered an open question. Coverbs are often referred to as prepositions because they appear before the noun phrase they modify. However, unlike prepositions, coverbs can sometimes stand alone as main verbs. For instance, in Standard Chinese, dào can be used in a prepositional or a verb sense:

• qù ("to go") is the main verb: 我到北京去。Wǒ dào Běijīng qù. ("I go to Beijing.")
• dào ("to arrive") is the main verb: 我到了。Wǒ dào le. ("I have arrived.")

Case affixes[link]

From a functional point of view, adpositions and morphological case markings are similar. Adpositions in one language can correspond precisely to case markings in another language. For example, the agentive noun phrase in the passive construction in English is introduced by the preposition by, while in Russian it is marked by the instrumental case. Sometimes both prepositions and cases can be observed within a single language. For example, the genitive case in German is in many instances interchangeable with a phrase using the preposition von.

Despite this functional similarity, adpositions and case markings are distinct grammatical categories:

• Adpositions combine syntactically with their complement phrase. Case markings combine with a noun morphologically.
• Two adpositions can usually be joined with a conjunction and share a single complement, but this is normally not possible with case markings:

{of and for the people} vs. Latin populi et populo, not *populi et -o ("people-genitive and -dative")

• One adposition can usually combine with two coordinated complements, but this is normally not possible with case markings:

of {the city and the world} vs. Latin urbis et orbis, not *urb- et orbis ("city and world-genitive")

• Case markings combine primarily with nouns, whereas adpositions can combine with phrases of many different categories.
• A case marking usually appears directly on the noun, but an adposition can be separated from the noun by other words.
• Within the noun phrase, determiners and adjectives may agree with the noun in case (case spreading), but an adposition only appears once.
• A language can have hundreds of adpositions (including complex adpositions), but no language has this many distinct morphological cases.

It can be difficult to clearly distinguish case markings from adpositions. For example, the post-nominal elements in Japanese and Korean are sometimes called case particles and sometimes postpositions. Sometimes they are analysed as two different groups because they have different characteristics (e.g. ability to combine with focus particles), but in such analysis, it is unclear which words should fall into which group.

• Japanese: 電車で　(densha de, "by train")
• Korean: 한국에 (Hangug-e, "to Korea")

Turkish and Finnish have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, and here there is evidence to help distinguish the two:

• Turkish: (case) sinemaya (cinema-dative, "to the cinema") vs (postposition) sinema için ("for the cinema")
• Finnish: (case) talossa (house-inessive, "in the house") vs (postposition) "talon edessä (house-gen in front, "in front of the house")

In these examples, the case markings form a word with their hosts (as shown by vowel harmony, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words.

Some languages, like Sanskrit, use postpositions to emphasize the meaning of the grammatical cases, and eliminate possible ambiguities in the meaning of the phrase. For example: रामेण सह (Rāmeṇa saha, "in company of Rāma"). In this example, "Rāmeṇa" is in the instrumental case, but, as its meaning can be ambiguous,the postposition saha is being used to emphasize the meaning of company.

In Indo-European languages, each case often contains several different endings, some of which may be derived from different roots. An ending is chosen depending on gender, number, whether the word is a noun or a modifier, and other factors.

Word choice[link]

The choice of preposition (or postposition) in a sentence is often idiomatic, and may depend either on the verb preceding it or on the noun which it governs: it is often not clear from the sense which preposition is appropriate. Different languages and regional dialects often have different conventions. Learning the conventionally preferred word is a matter of exposure to examples. For example, most dialects of American English have "to wait in line", but some have "to wait on line". Because of this, prepositions are often cited as one of the most difficult aspects of a language to learn, for both non-native speakers and native speakers.^[18] Where an adposition is required in one language, it may not be in another. In translations, adpositions must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and one may be either supplied or omitted. For instance:

• Those learning English may find it hard to choose between on, in, and at, as other languages may use only one or two prepositions as the equivalents of these three in English.

• Speakers of English learning Spanish or Portuguese have difficulty distinguishing between the prepositions por and para, as both frequently mean for in English.

• The German preposition von might be translated as by, of, or from in English depending on the sense.

See also[link]

• Casally modulated prepositions
• Japanese particles
• List of English prepositions
• Common English usage misconceptions
• Old English prepositions
• Relational noun
• Spanish prepositions

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Mark, L Hernandez The power of the letter (2001). ISBN 978-0-534-42066-6.
• Bennett, David C. (1975) Spatial and Temporal Uses of English Prepositions: An Essay in Stratificational Semantics. London: Longman.
• Emonds, Joseph E. (1985) A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories. Dordrecht: Foris.
• Haspelmath, Martin. (2003) "Adpositions". International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513977-1.
• Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
• Jackendoff, Ray S. (1973) "Base Rules for PPs". In S. R. Anderson and P. Kiparsky (eds), A Festschrift for Morris Halle, pp. 345–356. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
• Koopman, Hilda. (2000) "Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and particles". In The Syntax of Specifiers and Heads, pp. 204–260. London: Routledge.
• Libert, Alan R. (2006) Ambipositions. LINCOM studies in language typology (No. 13). LINCOM. ISBN 3-89586-747-0.
• Maling, Joan. (1983) "Transitive adjectives: A case of categorial reanalysis". In F. Heny and B. Richards (eds), Linguistic Categories: Auxiliaries and Related Puzzles, Vol. 1, pp. 253–289. Dordrecht: Reidel.
• Melis, Ludo. (2003) La préposition en français. Gap: Ophrys.
• Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2005) "Phrasal Prepositions in a Civil Tone." Language Log. Accessed 9 September 2007.
• Quirk, Randolph, and Joan Mulholland. (1964) "Complex Prepositions and Related Sequences". English Studies, suppl. to vol. 45, pp. 64–73.
• Rauh, Gisa. (1991) Approaches to Prepositions. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
• Reindl, Donald F. (2001) "Areal Effects on the Preservation and Genesis of Slavic Postpositions". In Lj. Šarić and D. F. Reindl On Prepositions (= Studia Slavica Oldenburgensia 8), pp. 85–100. Oldenburg: Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universitat Oldenburg.
• Thatcher, David (2008) Saving Our Prepositions: A Guide for the Perplexed by angel martinez

External links[link]

Look up adposition, preposition, postposition, or circumposition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Prepositions in the German language: Prepositions I, Prepositions II
• Merriam Webster Editor's take on whether it is ok to end a sentence with a Preposition
• With or Without a Complement: The Form and Function of Prepositions
• The Functions of Prepositions in English
• Some prepositions
• Английский предлог: "кем он дружит с?" (Сравнение русского и английского предлога)

Christopher Crosby "Chris" Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American comedian and actor. Farley was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre^[1] and cast member of the hit NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live between 1990 and 1995. Farley and Chris Rock were introduced as two of the show's new cast members in early 1990.^[2][3] Like his idol, John Belushi, Farley died of a speedball overdose at the age of 33. On August 26, 2005, Farley was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located in front of iO West.^[4]

Early life[link]

Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Mary Anne (née Crosby), a housewife, and Thomas "Tom" Farley, Sr., who owned an oil company.^[5][2] He had four siblings: Tom Jr., Kevin, John, and Barbara. His cousin, Jim, is a vice president at Ford Motor Company.^[6][7] Farley's family is traditionally Irish Catholic, and Farley and his siblings attended Catholic schools in his hometown, including Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart. According to Joel Murray, a fellow Second City cast member, Chris would "always make it to Mass".^[8] Many of his summers were spent as a camper and counselor at Red Arrow Camp, near Minocqua, Wisconsin.

Farley graduated from Marquette University in 1986, with a concentration in communications and theater.^[9] After college, he worked with his father at the Scotch Oil Company in Madison.^[10] He got his start in professional comedy at the Ark Improv Theatre in Madison, and at the Improv Olympic theater in Chicago. He then performed at Chicago's Second City Theatre, initially as part of Second City's touring group. He was eventually promoted to their main stage. While working at Second City, Farley befriended his Saturday Night Live colleague Lorne Michaels.^[3]

Career[link]

[edit] Saturday Night Live

Along with Chris Rock, Farley was one of two new Saturday Night Live cast members announced in the spring of 1990.^[2][3] On SNL, Farley frequently collaborated with his fellow cast members Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade, among others. This group came to be known as the "Bad Boys of SNL".^[11] Popular characters performed by Farley included himself on The Chris Farley Show, a talk show in which Farley quite often "interviewed" the guest, got very nervous and asked simple-minded or irrelevant questions, such as what their favorite rock band was; Matt Foley, an over-the-top motivational speaker who constantly reminded other characters that he "lived in a van, down by the river";^[12] Todd O'Connor of Bill Swerski's Superfans, a group of stereotypical Chicagoans who constantly shouted "da Bears!";,^[13] a Chippendale's dancer, in a famous sketch that paired him with guest host Patrick Swayze;^[14] one of the "Gap Girls", who hung out together at a local mall; a stereotypical lunch lady, to the theme of Lunchlady Land performed by Adam Sandler;^[15] and Bennett Brauer, a Weekend Update commentator who often divulged his personal and hygienic problems via air quotes. Some of these characters were brought to SNL from his days at Second City. Farley also performed impersonations of Tom Arnold, who gave Farley's eulogy at his private funeral; Andrew Giuliani, Jerry Garcia, Meat Loaf, Norman Schwarzkopf, Dom DeLuise, Roger Ebert, Carnie Wilson, Newt Gingrich, Mindy Cohn, Mama Cass, Hank Williams, Jr., and Rush Limbaugh were among the celebrities and real-life figures he portrayed.^[16]

Off-screen, Farley was well known for his pranks in the offices of Saturday Night Live. This would refer to Sandler and Farley making late-night prank phone calls from the SNL offices in Rockefeller Center, with Sandler speaking in an old woman's voice and Farley farting into the phone and mooning cars from a limousine.^[17][18] Sandler told Conan O'Brien on The Tonight Show that NBC fired him and Farley from the show in 1995.^[19]

Film career[link]

During his tenure on SNL, Farley had roles in the comedy films Wayne's World, Coneheads, Airheads, and uncredited in Billy Madison. He also appeared in the Red Hot Chili Peppers music video for "Soul to Squeeze" which was a song featured on the Coneheads soundtrack.

After Farley and most of his fellow cast members were released from their contracts at Saturday Night Live following the 1994–1995 season, Farley began focusing on his film career. His first two major films co-starred his fellow SNL colleague and close friend David Spade. Together, the duo made the films Tommy Boy and Black Sheep. These were a success at the domestic box office, earning around $32 million each and gaining a large cult following on home video.^[20][21] They established Farley as a relatively bankable star and he was given the title role of Beverly Hills Ninja, which finished in first place at the box office on its opening weekend.^[22] However, drug and alcohol problems interfered throughout Farley's film work, and production of his final film, Almost Heroes, was held up several times so Farley could attend rehab.^[23] After his premature death on December 18, 1997, his final completed films, Almost Heroes and Dirty Work, were released posthumously.

Unfinished projects[link]

Farley was the original choice to record vocals for the title character of the DreamWorks animated film Shrek, but died before recording began and he was replaced by one of his SNL co-stars, Mike Myers.^[12] He was also planning a Matt Foley film with his colleague David Spade.^{[citation needed]} By the time of his death, Farley had also been in talks to co-star with Vince Vaughn in the film The Gelfin and also to star in a biopic film about Fatty Arbuckle.^[24] Grown Ups would have reunited Farley with SNL co-stars David Spade, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider, but due to his death the film was shelved for over a decade and was recast with Kevin James.^{[citation needed]} He had also been in talks for the lead in an adaptation of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces.

Illness and death[link]

By early 1997, a visible decline in Farley's health was frequently noted in the press. Following his final guest appearance on SNL on October 25, 1997,^[25] his hoarse voice, continual perspiration and flushed skin were the subject of public scrutiny.^[26][27] In the final years of his life, Farley had sought treatment for obesity and drug abuse on seventeen separate occasions.^[28] On December 18, 1997, Farley was found dead by his younger brother John in his apartment in the John Hancock Center in Chicago.^[29] An autopsy later revealed that Farley had died of a drug overdose (morphine and cocaine) early that morning.^[30] Advanced atherosclerosis was cited as a "significant contributing factor".^[23] Farley's death is often compared to his SNL idol John Belushi, who also died at age 33 of an accidental drug overdose consisting of cocaine and heroin.^[14]

Funeral[link]

Farley's private funeral was held at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin five days later. Over five hundred people attended his funeral, many of the actors and comedians who had worked with him on Saturday Night Live and on film including Phil Hartman (who died five months later), Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser, Joe Mantegna, Lorne Michaels, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Buscemi, Mike Myers, Christopher Walken, John Goodman, Eugene Levy, George Wendt, Norm Macdonald, Holly Wortell, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, Tim Meadows, and Tom Arnold.^[31] Notably absent was Farley's former SNL castmate, frequent film co-star, and close friend David Spade, who was later quoted as saying that he declined to attend Farley's funeral because he "could not be in a room where Chris was in a box."^[16] However, Spade did appear on the special 25th anniversary episode of Saturday Night Live, holding back his tears, to call for a moment of remembrance for Farley. Farley was entombed at the Resurrection Catholic Cemetery.

Response and legacy[link]

On August 26, 2005, Farley was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located in front of iO West.^[32] In his memoir Gasping for Airtime, Jay Mohr recalled a moment involving Farley and his SNL colleague Phil Hartman. In the show's cast's goodbye song-and-dance performance to Hartman, the final scene featured Farley and Hartman embracing each other as the latter sang "Goodbye" to the camera.^[33] This was seen on the "Best of Chris Farley" SNL special, but omitted from video versions of the special.^{[citation needed]} The authorized biography of Farley, The Chris Farley Show, was written by his brother Tom, Jr. and Tanner Colby.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Chris Farley

• Chris Farley at the Internet Movie Database
• Maxim Rated Top SNL performer
• Review of Chris Farley biography
• Chris Farley at Find a Grave
• Chris Farley Foundation

Conan O'Brien
O'Brien in 2006
Birth name	Conan Christopher O'Brien
Born	(1963-04-18) April 18, 1963 (age 49) Brookline, Massachusetts, United States[1]
Medium	Television
Nationality	American
Years active	1985–present
Genres	Improvisational comedy, sketch comedy, physical comedy, surreal humor, self-deprecation
Influences	Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Robert Smigel, Pee-Wee Herman
Spouse	Elizabeth Ann Powel (since 2002; 2 children)
Notable works and roles	The Simpsons (writer, producer, 1991–1993) Late Night with Conan O'Brien (host, 1993–2009) The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (host, 2009–2010) Conan (host, 2010–present)
Signature
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program 1989 Saturday Night Live 2007 Late Night with Conan O'Brien[2]

Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS.^[3][4]

O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, and raised in an Irish Catholic family. He served as president of the Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, and was a writer for the sketch comedy series Not Necessarily the News. After writing for several comedy shows in Los Angeles, he joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live, and later of The Simpsons. He hosted Late Night with Conan O'Brien from 1993 to 2009, followed by seven months hosting The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, the only person to serve as the permanent host for both NBC programs.

Early life[link]

O'Brien was born in Brookline, Massachusetts (a suburb of Boston) to Thomas O'Brien, a physician, epidemiologist, and professor of medicine at Harvard,^[5][6][7] and Ruth O'Brien (née Reardon), an attorney and partner at the Boston firm Ropes & Gray.^[8] He is the third of six children. O'Brien's family is Irish Catholic and descends from pre-Civil War era immigrants.^[7] In a Late Night episode, O'Brien paid a visit to County Kerry, Ireland, where his ancestors originated.

O'Brien attended Brookline High School, where he served as the managing editor of the school newspaper.^[7] In his senior year, O'Brien won the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest with his short story, "To Bury the Living".^[9] After graduating as valedictorian in 1981, he entered Harvard University.^[10] At Harvard, O'Brien lived in Holworthy Hall during his freshman year^[11] and Mather House during his three upper-class years. He concentrated in history and literature and graduated magna cum laude^[12] in 1985.^[13] His senior thesis concerned the use of children as symbols in the works of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor.^[14] Throughout college, O'Brien was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine. He also briefly served as the drummer in a band called "The Bad Clams".^[15] During his sophomore and junior years, he served as the Lampoon's president.^[16] At this time, O'Brien's future boss at NBC, Jeff Zucker, was serving as President of the rival The Harvard Crimson.^[17]

Career[link]

[edit] Saturday Night Live (1987–1991)

O'Brien in the offices of The Simpsons writers, 1992

O'Brien moved to Los Angeles after graduation to join the writing staff of HBO's Not Necessarily the News.^[18] He was also a writer on the short-lived The Wilton North Report.^[18] He spent two years with that show and performed regularly with improvisational groups, including The Groundlings. In January 1988, Saturday Night Live's executive producer, Lorne Michaels, hired O'Brien as a writer. During his three years on Saturday Night Live (SNL), he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers"; the latter was first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz.^[19] O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch, "Nude Beach", with Robert Smigel, in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times. While on a writers' strike from Saturday Night Live following the 1987–88 season, O'Brien put on an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow SNL writers Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel called Happy Happy Good Show.^[20][21] While living in Chicago, O'Brien briefly roomed with Jeff Garlin.^[22] In 1989, O'Brien and his fellow SNL writers received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series.

O'Brien, like many SNL writers, occasionally appeared as an extra in sketches; his most notable appearance was as a doorman in a sketch in which Tom Hanks was inducted into the SNL "Five-Timers Club" for hosting his fifth episode. O'Brien returned to host the show in 2001 during its 26th season. O'Brien and Robert Smigel wrote the television pilot for Lookwell starring Adam West, which aired on NBC in 1991. The pilot never went to series, but it became a cult hit. It was later screened at The Other Network, a festival of unaired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret; it featured an extended interview with O'Brien and was rerun in 2002 on the Trio network.

[edit] The Simpsons (1991–1993)

From 1991 to 1993, O'Brien was a writer and producer for The Simpsons^[19] and was credited as writer or co-writer of four episodes.^[23] Of all the episodes he wrote, he considers "Marge vs. the Monorail" to be his favorite.^[19] Along with this episode, he has sole writing credits on "New Kid on the Block," "Homer Goes to College," and "Treehouse of Horror IV," on which he wrote the episode wraparounds. He was an active producer during seasons 4 and 5 as well, meaning he would frequently contribute to scripts from those seasons as well as come up with story ideas, plot points, and jokes.^[24] The style of the show's comedy during this period was also influenced by his sensibilities, with "Marge vs. the Monorail" being cited by several former writers as the turning point in the show's history where more absurd and visual comedy became acceptable.^[25][26] He also developed a reputation as a "room guy," or a writer who performs comedy bits throughout the day to entertain other writers.^[25]

In his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000,^[27] O'Brien credited The Simpsons with saving him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his being hired for the show.^[28]

During his time at The Simpsons, O'Brien also had a side project working with former writing partner Robert Smigel on the script for a musical film based on the "Hans and Franz" sketch from Saturday Night Live. The film was never produced.^[29][30]

[edit] Late Night (1993–2009)

As executive producer, Lorne Michaels invited O'Brien to audition to host the successor show to Late Night with David Letterman.^[7] Premiering on September 13, 1993, Late Night with Conan O'Brien received generally unfavorable critical reviews during its first few years. The show remained on multiweek renewal cycles while NBC decided its fate.^[7] O'Brien later poked fun at the first three years of the show, when on his 10th Anniversary Special Mr. T appeared to give O'Brien a gold necklace with a giant "7" on it. When O'Brien tried to point out that he had actually been on the air for ten years, Mr. T responded, "I know that, fool; but you've only been funny for seven!"^[31]

Beginning in 1996, O'Brien and the Late Night writing team were nominated annually for the Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series, winning the award for the first and only time in 2007. In 1997, 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004, he and the Late Night writing staff won the Writers Guild Award for Best Writing in a Comedy/Variety Series. In 2001, he formed his own television production company, Conaco, which subsequently shared in the production credits for Late Night.^[7]

A long-running joke, which stems from the recurring segment "Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland", is that O'Brien resembles the first female president of Finland, Tarja Halonen. After joking about this for several months (which led to his endorsement of her campaign), O'Brien traveled to Finland, appearing on several television shows and meeting President Halonen. The trip was filmed and aired as a special.^[32]

O'Brien ad-libbed the fictional website name "hornymanatee.com" on December 4, 2006, after a sketch about the fictional manatee mascot and its inappropriate webcam site.^[7] NBC opted to purchase the website domain name for $159, since the website did not previously exist. The network was concerned that the Federal Communications Commission would hold NBC liable for promoting inappropriate content if a third party were to register the domain and post such material.^[33] For a period of time, the website hosted material concerning Conan's initial manatee joke and other Tonight Show references, but today the site just redirects to NBC's main web page.

A popular recurring bit on the show was "Pale Force", a series of animated episodes in which comedian Jim Gaffigan and O'Brien are superheroes who fight crime with their "paleness". As Gaffigan introduced each new episode, O'Brien protested the portrayal of his character as cowardly, weak, and impotent. As of October 2005^[update], Late Night with Conan O'Brien had for eleven years consistently attracted an audience averaging about 2.5 million viewers.^[34] O'Brien is an avid guitarist and music listener. When Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band appeared on the show as musical guests, O'Brien joined the 17-piece band, along with the Max Weinberg 7 and guests Jimmy Fallon and Thomas Haden Church, playing acoustic guitar and contributing backup vocals for the song "Pay Me My Money Down". On the June 13, 2008, episode of Late Night, O'Brien simply walked onto the stage at the start of the show. Instead of his usual upbeat antics and monologue, O'Brien announced that he had just received news about the sudden death of his good friend, fellow NBC employee and frequent Late Night guest, Tim Russert. O'Brien proceeded to show two clips of his favorite Russert Late Night moments.^[35] On February 20, 2009, NBC aired the last episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The show consisted of a compilation of previous Late Night clips and included a surprise appearance by former sidekick, Andy Richter. Will Ferrell, John Mayer, and the White Stripes also appeared. O'Brien ended the episode by destroying the set with an axe, handing out the pieces of the set to the audience,^[36][37] and thanking a list of people who helped him get to that point in his career. Among those thanked were Lorne Michaels, David Letterman, Jay Leno, and O'Brien's wife and children.