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在下面这个引文中，讨论者对out的词性以及构成的短语用法进行了激烈和详尽的讨论，感觉还是比较靠谱的。
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AFrom_Out_of_the_Rain
The best book I have for propositions is FT Wood's English Prepositional Idioms, published by Macmillan. It has 90 pages dealing with 'The Prepositions and Their Uses' and 480 pages dealing with 'Prepositional Idioms'. The most it can say on the question is "It is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between those constructions in which 'out of' has the force of a compound and those where 'out' functions as an adverb, with 'of' as a preposition introducing an adjunct to it." （麦克米伦这个词典看来很权威啊！）
What's happening here is that we are finding it difficult to draw that line. But if we draw the line in favor of adverb+preposition then we avoid a conflict between official sources and Wikipedia policy. I'm not lining up with the little-o folk, some of whom seem to be rather uncooperative, but I am pointing out that there doesn't have to be a conflict if you don't want it.
It's only 'out of' though that might be a compound preposition. Don't confuse things by suggesting that 'from out of' forms a compound preposition. Wood's book offers a note at the end of its article on 'from': "'From' may be used before an adverb phrase of time or place which itself begins with another preposition." It gives examples including "He took a box from under the counter." and "From just after the war until the present time...". Compound prepositions are numerous, but we don't posit a new one every time we encounter a construction like this.
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Ok, I have to point out that you should take Wood's book with a pinch of salt. He obviously makes a mistake in saying that from precedes an adverb in "He took a box from under the counter." The adverb in this case is "from" itself, i.e. "took from", as "took under" doesn't make sense if "under" is the adverb. The simplest way to resolve this is to write the whole sentence in another form: "From out of the rain they came." This clearly indicates that "from out of" forms one preposition. "From the rain they came out", in which "out" is an adverb, only works if you omit "of". "Out of the rain they came from" is a little awkward.
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In 'from the beginning' the rest of the phrase is a noun phrase, with 'beginning' as its head. This is typical, but it is not the only construction of a prepositional phrase. In 'from above' and 'from next-door' the rest of the phrase is an adverb—'above' or 'next-door'. In 'from under the table' and 'from across the street' the rest of the prepositional phrase is an adverbial phrase. It is an adverbial phrase because it answers the same question that 'above' and 'next-door' answer: 'where'; it is an adverb phrase of place, in Wood's terms. What we have in these examples is not compound prepositions, but nested prepositional phrases. (In all cases the 'from' phrase is answering the same question: Where did it come from? From the beginning. From above. From under the table. From across the street. The question wouldn't be *'where did it come from under?' or *'from across where did it come'. Or in our case *'where did it come from out of'. However, with a compound preposition the question is 'what is it made out of' or 'what is it lying in front of'.) |
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发表于 2017-5-18 11:37:08
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