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Preposition stranding

Preposition stranding is a syntactic in which a preposition becomes separated from its complement (typically a ) due to movement operations in a sentence, such as in questions or relative s, leaving the preposition in its original position at the end of the . This construction is exemplified in English by utterances like "Who did you talk to?" where the preposition "to" is stranded after the movement of its object "who" to the front of the . In contrast to preposition stranding, the alternative pied-piping involves the preposition moving together with its complement, as in the more formal variant "To whom did you talk?" Preposition stranding occurs not only in interrogatives but also in relative clauses (e.g., "the who you talked to") and passives (e.g., "the issue was talked about"), though its availability varies by and . While frequently used in informal spoken English, stranding has historically been stigmatized in prescriptive rules, which favor pied-piping as more elegant, despite its prevalence in everyday usage. Cross-linguistically, preposition stranding is relatively rare among the world's languages, being permitted freely in English and the continental languages (e.g., Danish, ) but disallowed in such as and , where pied-piping is obligatory. In languages like and , it is more restricted, often limited to certain pronouns or contexts. Linguists have debated its theoretical underpinnings, with analyses linking it to processing efficiency—stranding may reduce immediate at gap sites in simpler clauses but increase overall complexity in embedded structures—and to variations in syntactic rules across languages. Acquisition studies indicate that English-speaking children master stranding around age 2;7, following related constructions like verb-particle , highlighting its integration into early .

Overview

Definition

Preposition stranding is a syntactic phenomenon in which a preposition is separated from its complement and left in a at or near the end of a , typically without an immediately following object. This occurs when the complement, such as a wh-word or , is extracted to a higher in the , leaving the preposition "stranded." In contrast, pied-piping involves the preposition moving together with its complement to the front of the , as in the formal English variant "To whom did you speak?" rather than the stranding construction "Who(m) did you speak to?" The basic mechanism of stranding arises during processes like , where the complement is displaced, but the preposition remains in its original position due to language-specific syntactic rules. For instance, in English questions, this yields constructions such as "What are you looking at?" where "at" is stranded after the extraction of "what." Similarly, in relative clauses, "the person who I was talking to" exemplifies stranding, contrasting with the pied-piped "the person to whom I was talking." These examples illustrate how stranding contributes to the informal, analytic style prevalent in spoken English. Typologically, preposition stranding is more common in analytic languages like English and languages, which rely heavily on and function words rather than . In contrast, it is rare or disallowed in more synthetic languages, such as those in the continental Germanic , where prepositions typically move with their complements or require alternative strategies like resumptive pronouns. This variation highlights stranding as a feature tied to the degree of analyticity in a language's .

Historical Development

Preposition stranding has been a feature of English since the period (c. 1100–1500), evolving from earlier Germanic constructions, though limited in . The phenomenon attracted early critical attention from 17th-century grammarians, who viewed it as a deviation from classical norms. In 1672, poet and critic famously condemned it as an "idiom which our language is strong in" but ungrammatical, citing examples from Ben Jonson's work in his Defence of the Epilogue to The Conquest of Granada. This prescriptivist stance, lacking historical precedent in English, marked the beginning of debates over its legitimacy, influencing subsequent grammars. By the , such criticisms persisted but began to incorporate descriptive elements. Bishop Robert Lowth, in his 1762 A Short Introduction to English Grammar, described stranding as a "common " natural to spoken English and informal writing, though he advised preposition pied-piping for elevated styles to align with Latin models. This period saw stranding increasingly documented in usage, yet prescriptive rules against it solidified in educational texts, reflecting broader efforts to standardize English along classical lines. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, linguistic scholarship shifted toward descriptive analysis, integrating stranding into accounts of English syntax. , in his 1924 The Philosophy of Grammar, emphasized English's analytic tendencies, contributing to the language's from synthetic to more particle-like elements. This work highlighted stranding as emblematic of English's pragmatic preferences over rigid inflectional rules. The modern study of preposition stranding emerged in the 1960s with the advent of generative linguistics, which formalized it as a rule-governed process. Noam Chomsky's 1977 paper "On Wh-Movement," published in Formal Syntax, analyzed stranding as integral to wh-movement operations, positing it as a language parameter distinguishing English-like languages (which permit stranding) from those requiring pied-piping, such as French. This framework elevated stranding from a stylistic quirk to a core syntactic feature. The term "preposition stranding" itself crystallized in the linguistic literature of the 1970s, appearing prominently in generative analyses to denote the separation of prepositions from their complements. Post-1980s research expanded into cross-linguistic comparisons, revealing stranding's variability across languages and its ties to broader parametric settings in . Studies like Hornstein and Weinberg's 1981 "Case Theory and Preposition Stranding" in Linguistic Inquiry explored its implications for case assignment, while subsequent works examined occurrences in languages such as and tongues. These investigations underscored stranding's role in debates, fostering a richer understanding of syntactic diversity.

Theoretical Background

Generative Grammar Approaches

In generative grammar, preposition stranding is treated as a subtype of A-bar movement, specifically wh-movement, in which the complement of a preposition is extracted, leaving a trace bound to the stranded preposition. This analysis originates in Government and Binding (GB) theory, where the trace must be properly governed and case-licensed for the derivation to converge. In the Minimalist Program, the process is recast as internal Merge driven by feature checking, with the preposition unable to check the case feature of its complement, allowing extraction without violating locality constraints like the Phase Impenetrability Condition. A key parametric distinction accounts for cross-linguistic variation in stranding: languages like English permit it because prepositions do not assign (structural) case to their complements, enabling the to receive case from a higher verbal head through a that incorporates the preposition into the verb's . In contrast, languages like disallow stranding because prepositions function as case-assigners (proper governors), blocking as the trace would remain uncased. This parameter aligns with broader head-complement asymmetries, where English prepositions lack the government properties of their counterparts. Within GB theory, bounding constraints such as Subjacency further restrict stranding by limiting movement across certain barriers; for instance, extraction from a complex island yields ungrammaticality, as in *Who_i did you meet the woman that argued with t_i?, violating the bounding nodes and . Similar island effects apply in the Minimalist framework via phase-based intervention, ensuring that stranded prepositions do not circumvent locality. Formally, stranding in English wh-questions is represented with a non-branching after reanalysis, where the preposition adjoins to the verb, allowing the complement to move freely: 
CP
├── Spec: who_i
└── C'
    └── [IP](/page/IP)
        ├── you
        ├── V': talked-to
        └── [PP](/page/PP): t_i ([trace](/page/Trace))
This structure illustrates the 's governance by the reanalyzed verbal complex, satisfying theta-role assignment and case requirements.

Alternative Syntactic Theories

In , preposition stranding is analyzed as a holistic construction rather than a of movement rules, where the entire form-meaning pairing of stranding patterns emerges from usage-based generalizations in language data. This approach posits that stranding competes with pied-piping as distinct but related constructions, with factors like end-weight influencing ; for instance, heavier complements following the stranded preposition improve , as in "This chair feels to me so hard that it could be made of ," where the complex post-verbal phrase favors stranding over pied-piping. Adele Goldberg's work emphasizes how such constructions are entrenched through frequency and context, allowing productive use in English relative clauses and wh-questions without invoking universal parameters. Thomas Hoffmann further argues that this framework better captures cross-dialectal variation in British and , where stranding frequency correlates with corpus-based patterns rather than innate syntactic constraints. Dependency Grammar treats prepositions as non-head dependents of their nominal objects or verbs, with stranding arising through reattachment mechanisms that preserve hierarchical without movement. In pseudo-passives like "He was yelled at," the preposition "at" reattaches directly to the verb via a specialized "prep-strand" , ensuring valency satisfaction and avoiding dangling modifiers. For relative clauses, such as "The man we talked about," the stranded preposition reattaches to the antecedent , maintaining integrity. This analysis extends to languages like , where R-pronouns (e.g., "waar" in "Waar heb je over gepraat?" – "What did you talk about?") enable stranding by fronting as clitics, reattaching the preposition to the while adhering to linear precedence constraints in trees. Functionalist approaches view preposition stranding as driven by discourse-pragmatic needs, particularly in structuring to highlight new or focal elements in spoken English. Stranding facilitates end-focus by placing prepositions after lighter extracted phrases, as in "Who did you talk to?" versus the more formal "To whom did you talk?", enhancing conversational naturalness and accessibility. Ken-ichi Takami's functional analyses underscore how stranding aligns with cognitive salience, where the extracted constituent carries discourse-new information, promoting efficient communication over rigid syntax. Critiques of generativist accounts highlight their lack of universality, as preposition stranding exhibits gradient acceptability across typological profiles rather than binary parameters. For example, while English freely strands prepositions, languages like French prohibit it entirely, and Dutch restricts it to R-pronouns, revealing pragmatic and historical influences over purported innate settings. Takami argues that syntactic theories fail to explain such variation, advocating functional explanations that prioritize usage and context for broader cross-linguistic insight.

P-stranding in Wh-movement

Languages Allowing P-stranding

Preposition stranding in is fully permitted in English, allowing the wh-element to extract while leaving the preposition at the end of the clause. A canonical example is "Who(m) are you waiting for?", where "for" is stranded after the movement of "who(m)". This construction became prevalent in following a historical shift from a preference for pied-piping in Old and , where stranding was limited to specific contexts like relatives with the invariant complementizer þe and gradually expanded to broader by the . In Danish, preposition stranding under is similarly allowed and common, particularly in V2 questions that characterize the language's . For instance, "Hvem taler du med?" ("Who are you talking to?") strands the preposition med ("with") after extraction of the wh-pronoun hvem. This parallels English in its flexibility, occurring freely with prepositions denoting , , and place, and extending to other semantic categories like manner under certain conditions. Dutch permits preposition stranding in wh-movement, though it is variable and more restricted than in English or Danish, often depending on register and the involvement of R-pronouns. The standard pied-piping form is "Met wie praat je?" ("With whom are you talking?"), but colloquial speech, especially in northern and western dialects, favors stranding as in "Wie praat je met?" ("Who are you talking with?"). R-pronouns like waar or waarmee facilitate stranding by optionally incorporating into the preposition (e.g., "Waar praat je over?" becoming "Wie praat je over?" in informal contexts), reflecting a syntactic mechanism tied to pronominal cliticization. These languages share analytic traits as Germanic VO varieties, including the loss of rich on nouns and prepositions, which enables stranding by reducing the need for case agreement between the preposition and its extracted complement. This parametric variation aligns with generative approaches positing differences in head or phase boundaries for prepositional phrases.

Languages Disallowing P-stranding

In languages that disallow preposition stranding (P-stranding) during , the preposition must obligatorily pied-pipe with the wh-phrase to the sentence-initial position, preventing the separation of the preposition from its complement. This restriction contrasts with P-stranding languages like English and is often attributed to parametric differences in syntactic structure, such as the inability of prepositions to assign case independently or the presence of islands that block extraction of the complement. Greek exemplifies a strict ban on P-stranding in wh-movement, requiring pied-piping due to its rich case morphology, which demands that the wh-phrase match the case assigned by the preposition. For instance, the question "With whom is Anna talking?" is grammatical as Me poion milá i Ánna? but ungrammatical as Poion milá i Ánna me? (lit. "Whom talk-PRES.1SG the Anna with?"). This prohibition arises because Greek prepositional phrases function as islands at (LF), preventing DP extraction, and E-chain uniformity requires categorical feature matching between the wh-phrase and its trace. In , P-stranding is generally disallowed in formal registers of , with pied-piping as the preferred strategy, though some dialects exhibit limited variation. The standard form for "With whom are you talking?" is ¿Con quién hablas? rather than the ungrammatical ¿Quién hablas con?. This pattern stems from parametric properties like D-to-P incorporation, where the determiner-like wh-word incorporates into the preposition, forcing joint movement, and the absence of reanalysis rules that could reassign case to allow stranding in languages like English. Standard similarly prohibits P-stranding in , favoring pied-piping, with resumptive pronouns frequently employed as an alternative strategy to avoid gaps. For example, "With whom do you speak?" is expressed as Maʿa man tatakallamu? (pied-piped) rather than the ill-formed Man tatakallamu maʿa?, or mitigated via resumption as man tatakallamu maʿa-hu? ("whom speak-2SG with-him?"). The disallowance is linked to Arabic's morphological case system on prepositional objects, which precludes stranding by disrupting case , alongside broader settings that treat as bounding nodes for movement.

P-stranding in Sluicing

Behavior in Allowing Languages

In languages that permit preposition stranding under , such as English and Danish, this pattern extends to sluicing, where the elided preserves the stranding without requiring pied-piping of the preposition. In English, preposition stranding is preserved in sluicing constructions, allowing the wh-remnant to appear without the preposition, as in the example: "She talked to someone, but I don't know who [she talked to _ ]." This structure implies that the wh-phrase has moved from the object position of the preposition, leaving a in the elided tense phrase (TP), while the preposition remains in its base position within the deleted material. Similarly, Danish retains preposition stranding under sluicing, with the preposition optionally realized before the remnant but typically omitted to reflect the stranded configuration, as in: "Hun talte med nogen, men jeg ved ikke hvem [med _ ]." Here, the stranded preposition "med" (with) is not deleted or required to pied-pipe with the wh-word "hvem" (who), mirroring the language's tolerance for stranding in non-elliptical contexts. The underlying mechanism involves of the remnant to the specifier of , followed by deletion of the TP, which contains the of the moved wh-phrase and the preposition in its governed ; the stranding survives as a remnant effect because the deletion targets the TP but leaves the structure intact. Empirically, these stranding patterns in sluicing exhibit high among speakers of English and Danish, as evidenced by judgments in linguistic studies, and they are frequently attested in corpora of use, contrasting with the fuller, less elliptical wh-questions where the preposition is overtly visible.

Behavior in Disallowing Languages

In languages that prohibit preposition stranding under , such as and dialects, sluicing permits stranding in a manner that reveals a diagnostic between overt and . This partial repair effect arises because the elided in sluicing licenses configurations that violate surface syntactic constraints, effectively "hiding" the stranded preposition within the deleted material. Such underscores sluicing's in probing underlying syntactic operations across languages. However, analyses differ by , with some attributing apparent stranding to pseudo-sluicing (e.g., wh-clefts) rather than true . In , stranding is disallowed in wh-questions, where pied-piping is obligatory (e.g., *¿Habló con quién? is ungrammatical, requiring ¿Con quién habló?). However, under sluicing, stranding becomes acceptable, as in María está hablando con alguien, pero no sé quién, where the wh-phrase appears without the preposition. This construction is often realized with inversion for naturalness (e.g., no sé quién), and acceptability shows dialectal variation, with some speakers preferring pied-piped forms like no sé con quién in certain regions. Child language data further support this repair, showing no significant preference between overt and omitted prepositions in sluices, consistent with ellipsis licensing the structure. In dialects like Hijazi, bans stranding (e.g., requiring pied-piping with prepositions like maʕa 'with'), yet sluicing allows it, as evidenced by empirical judgments showing higher acceptability for stranded sluices than non-elliptical counterparts. This pattern holds in varieties including Libyan and Emirati . In contrast, for Omani Arabic, apparent stranding in examples like Zaid raḥ maʕa ḥad, lakin ma aʕraf man ('Zaid went with someone, but I don't know who') is argued to derive from pseudo-sluicing structures rather than true preposition stranding. This emergent stranding in allowing dialects may be facilitated by focus prosody that highlights the wh-remnant, reducing perceptual constraints on the ellipsis site. These patterns indicate that sluicing relaxes overt syntactic restrictions, enabling stranding as a to diagnose derivations. Merchant's diagnostics highlight such cross-linguistic asymmetries, where repairs locality violations or case mismatches that block stranding elsewhere, though the exact mechanism—whether PF-deletion or alternative sources like clefts—remains debated in non-stranding languages.

P-stranding in Other Constructions

Relative Clauses

In English, preposition stranding is common in restrictive relative clauses, particularly when the functions as the object of the preposition, as in the example "The man (who) I spoke to _," where the preposition "to" is left at the end of the clause. This is preferred over pied-piping (e.g., "The man to whom I spoke") in informal speech and spoken English, reflecting its higher frequency in casual registers compared to formal writing. In French, preposition stranding in relative clauses is rare and generally disallowed in standard usage, which traditionally requires pied-piping, as in "L'homme à qui j'ai parlé" (The man to whom I spoke). However, it emerges in colloquial varieties, especially in dialects like or informal spoken registers, with examples such as "L'homme que j'ai parlé à _" (The man who I spoke to _), often under influence from English contact. Preposition stranding typically occurs in object relative clauses, where the is the object of the preposition, whereas it does not apply in subject relative clauses, as the extracted element is the rather than a prepositional object (e.g., "The man who spoke _" involves no preposition stranding). Processing ease also plays a , with stranding favored in simpler, less embedded structures to reduce during comprehension. Typologically, preposition stranding in relative clauses occurs more frequently in head-initial languages, such as those in the Germanic family (e.g., English), where verb-object order aligns with preposition-complement sequencing that facilitates stranding under movement.

Pseudopassives

Pseudopassives are passive constructions derived from intransitive verbs followed by prepositional phrases, where the object of the preposition is promoted to subject position, stranding the preposition. In English, this is permitted, as in the sentence "This bed was slept in," where the preposition "in" is stranded after passivization of the intransitive verb "sleep." Here, the prepositional phrase functions equivalently to a direct object, allowing the noun phrase to undergo A-movement to subject position. Theoretically, pseudopassives are analyzed as passives of intransitive verbs combined with prepositions, where the verb-preposition complex undergoes reanalysis to form a unit eligible for passivization. Noam Chomsky's 1981 framework in accounts for this by positing a syntactic reanalysis that treats the V+P as a complex verb, enabling the preposition's object to move while stranding the preposition. This analysis highlights the structural parallels between pseudopassives and standard passives, though it has been critiqued for not fully capturing semantic constraints. Pseudopassives in English are restricted to certain verbs and contexts, particularly those implying affectedness or of the . For instance, constructions with verbs like "live in" are acceptable when the (e.g., "The house was lived in") is directly affected by the action, but not with "arrive at," as in the ungrammatical "*Boston was arrived at," since arrival does not characterize or affect the location in the required way. Unergative verbs (e.g., "," "live") permit this stranding more readily than unaccusative ones (e.g., "arrive," "die"), reflecting lexical and semantic conditions on passivization. In contrast, marginalizes or disallows pseudopassives with preposition stranding, as seen in the ungrammatical "*Ce lit a été dormi dans," where speakers prefer active alternatives like "On a dormi dans ce lit." This absence stems from French's stricter constraints on preposition stranding and passivization of prepositional objects, differing from English's more permissive syntax. Richard Kayne's analysis attributes this to parametric differences in case assignment and , where French prohibits the necessary reanalysis for stranding in such constructions.

Directional and Split Constructions

In directional prepositional phrases (PPs), allows preposition stranding particularly with motion verbs, where the R-pronoun replaces the complement, leaving the preposition stranded. For instance, in the sentence Daar loopt hij naartoe ("There he walks to"), the directional preposition naar ("to") is stranded after the verb, with the R-pronoun daar fronted as an adverbial element. This construction arises through adverbial stranding, where the R-pronoun inserts into the PP structure, reflecting the fine-grained of spatial and directional elements. Similarly, German exhibits split constructions in directional PPs, often involving R-pronouns and influenced by verb-second (V2) word order, which separates the preposition from its complement. An example is Da hinein läuft er ("There into he runs"), where the R-pronoun da fronts, stranding the directional element hinein ("into") after the finite verb in a main clause. This mechanism relies on R-pronoun insertion, treating the stranded part as a remnant of a complex PP, and is common with motion verbs expressing directionality. Compared to English, where preposition stranding is more broadly permitted but less tied to R-pronouns, continental like and demonstrate greater flexibility in these directional splits due to their extended projection of adpositional structures and constraints. R-pronouns, such as daar/er in and da in , facilitate this discontinuity by encoding locative or directional reference without full pied-piping of the preposition.

Cross-linguistic Patterns

Germanic Languages

Preposition stranding, the syntactic phenomenon where a preposition is separated from its complement by movement operations such as or passivization, is widely attested across , with patterns influenced by their shared Proto-Germanic origins and subsequent divergence in case systems and analytic tendencies. The historical development of stranding tolerance traces back to early Germanic varieties, where it was often restricted to contexts with invariant complementizers like þe or Old Icelandic er, but expanded in analytic descendants following the loss of inflectional case marking from Proto-Germanic, which diminished the morphological cues provided by prepositions. This erosion, particularly pronounced in and continental North Germanic, facilitated reanalysis of prepositional phrases (PPs) as non-phasal units, enabling freer extraction. In English and the languages, such as Danish, , and , preposition stranding exhibits high acceptance rates in constructions like wh-questions, relative clauses, and pseudopassives, reflecting their predominantly analytic syntax with reduced case distinctions. For instance, English allows stranding freely, as in "Who are you talking to?" rather than the pied-piped "To whom are you talking?" Corpus analysis from the reveals stranding in 59% of relevant cases overall, rising to 100% in spoken data and approximately 51% in written contexts, underscoring its prevalence in informal and analytic environments. Similarly, Danish and permit stranding in wh-constructions (e.g., "Vilka äpplen pratar du om?" – "Which apples are you talking about?") and pseudopassives (e.g., Danish equivalents of "The beds have been slept in"), though at somewhat lower frequencies than English due to residual synthetic elements. West Germanic languages like and display more restricted and variable patterns, often favoring pied-piping or resumptive strategies over direct stranding, though colloquial varieties show greater flexibility. In , standard usage avoids stranding through R-pronouns (e.g., "waarop" for "on which"), which incorporate the preposition to form complex wh-elements like "Waarop baseer je je mening?" ("On what do you base your opinion?"), effectively preventing PP separation. However, spoken northern commonly allow stranding without R-pronouns, as in "Wie praat je over?" ("Who are you talking about?"). similarly prioritizes pied-piping in formal registers (e.g., "Womit hast du das gemacht?" – "With what did you do that?"), but permits colloquial stranding or "da"-compounds (e.g., "Worum geht's?" – "What's it about?") in spoken and dialectal contexts, with studies indicating stranding in under 10% of formal instances but up to 40% in informal spoken from northern dialects. These divergences highlight how retention of case marking in West Germanic sustains synthetic preferences, contrasting with the analytic leniency in English and .

Romance Languages

In Romance languages, preposition stranding is generally disallowed, with pied-piping being the predominant strategy in wh-movement constructions such as questions and relative clauses. This restriction stems from the languages' morphological properties, where prepositions often fuse with wh-elements or pronouns, as seen in standard forms like French à qui ("to whom") or Spanish con quién ("with whom"). However, exceptions appear in colloquial varieties and contact situations, creating a gradient of acceptability across the family. In and , pied-piping remains the norm in formal registers, but emerging stranding occurs in spoken dialects influenced by bilingualism. For instance, permits stranding in questions like Quoi t'as mangé avec? ("What did you eat with?"), attributed to contact with English. Similarly, in U.S. heritage among simultaneous English-Spanish bilinguals, stranding is accepted at rates up to 47% in acceptability judgments, as in ¿Quién bailó con? ("Who did they dance with?"), diverging from monolingual norms that reject it. These patterns highlight how early bilingual exposure can introduce stranding into otherwise conservative systems. Italian and Portuguese exhibit similar blocks to stranding under regular wh-movement, with Italian fully disallowing it, as in the ungrammatical Che hai parlato di? ("What did you talk about?"). Portuguese follows suit in European varieties, but shows greater tolerance, particularly with lexical prepositions in colloquial speech, such as Que remédio que você não pode ficar sem? ("What medicine can't you do without?"). Both languages display higher tolerance for stranding under sluicing compared to overt wh-movement, often employing resumptive pronouns to evade the restriction. This variation reflects the Romance family's Latin heritage, where rich inflectional and preposition-pronoun contractions inhibit stranding, yet contact effects in bilingual regions—such as North or U.S. communities—increasingly promote it. Typologically, form a gradient scale, from conservative pied-piping in and to more permissive colloquial stranding in .

Semitic and Other Languages

In such as , preposition stranding is generally disallowed under , with prepositions required to pied-pipe the wh-phrase, as in standard non-stranding patterns observed across dialects like Hijazi and Saudi . However, exceptions arise in sluicing constructions, where stranding becomes acceptable despite the prohibition in full wh-questions; for instance, Hijazi permits a stranded preposition in elliptical questions derived from clefts, aligning with resumption strategies common in the language. This behavior is influenced by the clitic-like nature of prepositions in , which often to nouns or pronouns, restricting their independent stranding outside of contexts. Greek, an Indo-European language with Semitic-like adpositional features, predominantly requires pied-piping in constructions involving prepositions, as seen in examples like me ton opion ('with whom'), where the preposition cannot be stranded under . Standard adheres to the Preposition Stranding Generalization, disallowing stranding under sluicing unless the language permits it in overt wh-questions, though dialects show emerging tolerance for stranding in sluicing due to substrate influences or contact effects. Limited evidence suggests slight increases in stranding acceptability in contemporary Standard Greek, potentially from contact in bilingual settings, but this remains marginal and ungrammatical in formal registers. Among , preposition stranding is rare and typically avoided, with exemplifying strict pied-piping requirements; however, certain "ambivalent adpositions" can postpose to create apparent stranding effects, as in idiomatic expressions like v otmestku ('in revenge'), where the preposition relocates after its dependent without true extraction. In Asian languages like , which employ postpositions rather than prepositions, stranding is impossible due to the head-final structure and wh-in-situ strategies, ensuring postpositions remain attached to their hosts without movement-induced separation. Research on preposition stranding in non-Indo-European families, particularly languages, remains understudied, with typological surveys highlighting gaps in data from and Niger-Congo groups where adpositional systems vary widely but lack systematic analysis of stranding phenomena. Post-2010s typological work has called for expanded cross-linguistic investigations to address these lacunae, emphasizing the need for comparative studies beyond Indo-European to refine universal constraints on stranding.

Debates and Controversies

Prescriptivism in English

In the , prescriptive grammarians such as Robert Lowth in his A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) and in (1795) condemned preposition stranding as a vulgar or illiterate practice, drawing on Latin models where prepositions must precede their objects. Lowth illustrated the construction with examples he deemed faulty, arguing it deviated from classical norms, while Murray echoed this by altering examples to avoid stranding, reinforcing the view that it marred elegant prose. The marked a significant shift toward tolerance, with H.W. Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) dismissing the ban as a "superstition" and defending stranding as idiomatic and preferable in many cases for clarity and rhythm. This perspective gained traction in style guides; for instance, has permitted ending sentences with prepositions since its first edition in and explicitly endorses it in modern editions as natural English usage. Today, preposition stranding is accepted across informal, journalistic, and most formal registers, with only hyper-formal or archaic contexts avoiding it; usage surveys among writers and editors indicate majority approval, around 55% in targeted polls, though broader linguistic consensus views it as standard. This evolution has permeated through memes and the apocryphal quote attributed to —"This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put"—which satirizes the rule's awkward enforcement and underscores its declining stigma.

Theoretical Disputes

One major theoretical dispute in the analysis of preposition stranding concerns whether it constitutes a binary parametric choice or a more gradient phenomenon within generative grammar. Early parametric approaches, such as those in Chomsky's 1981 framework, treated stranding as a discrete option tied to broader principles like the Empty Category Principle (ECP), where languages either permit traces left by wh-movement to be governed appropriately (as in English) or require pied-piping to avoid ECP violations (as in French). However, critiques of the ECP, notably from Kayne (1981) and Pesetsky (1982), argued that it inadequately captures cross-linguistic variation, proposing instead that stranding correlates with independent parameters like the absence of preposition cliticization or verb-particle constructions, rendering the ECP overly restrictive for explaining stranding without additional mechanisms. More recent work challenges the binary view by advocating gradient parameters, where stranding acceptability varies continuously based on processing load, frequency in corpora, or probabilistic constraints, as evidenced in studies of English speakers' variable judgments on stranding versus pied-piping. A related puzzle arises in sluicing constructions, where preposition stranding appears under ellipsis even in languages that prohibit it in non-elided wh-movement, prompting debates on the scope and mechanism of deletion. Merchant (2001) proposed the Preposition Stranding Generalization, asserting that stranding is permitted under sluicing if and only if it is allowed under overt wh-movement, attributing apparent repairs to wh-movement preceding TP-deletion, which conceals ECP-like violations at PF. In contrast, Lasnik (2001) critiqued this by emphasizing PF deletion's role in hiding illicit structures but argued for narrower deletion scopes that do not fully repair island violations or stranding bans, suggesting that Merchant's generalization overpredicts cross-linguistic uniformity and fails to account for cases where sluicing does not ameliorate stranding in non-Germanic languages. This post-2000 exchange highlights ongoing tensions between movement-plus-deletion analyses and alternatives that limit repair to semantic or LF levels, with empirical tests from languages like Brazilian Portuguese showing partial counterexamples to Merchant's claim; for instance, studies on Emirati Arabic (as of 2014) demonstrate stranding under sluicing despite its prohibition in overt wh-movement, challenging the strict iff condition. Cross-linguistic investigations reveal significant gaps in stranding patterns, particularly in underexplored families like , which challenge rigid assumptions. Bantu languages such as Lubukusu and Kiswahili generally prohibit stranding, relying instead on resumptive pronominal clitics to license extraction from prepositional phrases, as direct traces would violate locality constraints akin to the ECP. These patterns, absent in where stranding is robust, suggest that may require revisions to incorporate resumptives as a core parametric option rather than a last-resort , complicating binary head-complement parameterizations and calling for featural or micro-parametric refinements to accommodate Bantu's agglutinative and systems. In the 2020s, advances in have reframed stranding as an outcome of ranked constraints weighing costs against pied-piping , offering a model for variation. For instance, analyses of wh-related prepositions in English posit that stranding emerges when constraints favoring remnant outrank those prohibiting , predicting across contexts like interrogatives. Such models, building on earlier applications, integrate cross-linguistic data by allowing language-specific rankings to penalize stranding in Romance or while permitting it in Germanic, thus addressing ECP critiques through violable universals rather than hard parameters.