On Preposition Stranding

The phenomena of preposition stranding is very rare when examining various languages around the world. The most distinct class of languages that demonstrates this is that of the Germanic languages. Behavior within the Germanic languages varies from one language to the next. On the one end, Danish, as Herslund (1984:58) puts it, “...allows almost completely free stranding of prepositions.” Hornstein and Weinberg (1981) believe that English can only be stranded from a PP that is immediately dominated by a VP. This analysis, however, is does not account for several cases. Later, Chomsky’s (1986) Barriers approach explains some unaccounted for cases. However, he still leaves some English phenomena unaccounted, as Takami (1988) points out. It is pointed out by Maling and Zaenen (1985) that Icelandic demonstrates preposition stranding in certain constructions. On the other hand, stranding in Dutch is limited to a certain brand of pronouns while it is restricted altogether in German (Herslund 1984). Accounting for such a phenomena has been tried by numerous theorists (see Hornstein and Weinberg (1981), Herslund (1984), Maling and Zaenen (1985), Chomsky (1986), Takami (1988)). Despite these attempts, many individual accounts have posited a theory that has explained a certain subset of the phenomena of preposition stranding. At the same time, each has left a hole in their own accounts, at one point or another. In this paper, we attempt to point out these holes, one by one. Since the papers we will explore mostly account for English phenomena, we will try to get a larger picture by exploring preposition stranding in Danish. Next, working from existing theories, we explain how the phenomena of preposition stranding behaves in English and Danish. Finally, we explain how the insights of the data and theories presented can be used to explain what is happening in cases of preposition stranding in English and Danish.