§ 3. Interjections may be primary and secondary.

1. Primary interjections are not derived from other parts of speech. Most of them are simple words: ah, oh, eh, pooh, hum, fie, bravo, hush. Only a few primary interjections are composite: heigh-ho! hey-ho! holla-ho! gee-ho!

2. Secondary interjections are derived from other parts of speech. They are homonymous with the words they are derived from. They are: well, now, here, there, come, why, etc.

(Derivative interjections should not be confused with exclamation-words, such as nonsense, shame, good, etc.)

Derivative interjections may be simple: well, here, there, come, etc., and composite: dear me, confound it, hang it, etc.

Interjections are used as independent sentence-words or independent elements of the sentence.¹

¹ See Chapter XV, § 42.

T h e D a u g h t e r: Sixpence thrown away! Really mamma, you might have

spared Freddy that.

T h e G e n t l e m a n: Phew! (Shaw)

Well, I don’t like those mysterious little pleasure trips that he is so fond of

taking. (Voynich)

N о t e. — Formulas of courtesy, greetings, etc. should not be regarded as

interjections. Thus, good-bye, thank you are not interjections because they do

not express emotion or will.

Chapter ХП

The preposition

§ 1. The preposition is a part of speech which denotes the relations between objects and phenomena. It shows the relations between a noun or a pronoun and other words.

Usually the preposition is not stressed and stands before the word it refers to.

Desert moved quickly to the windows. (Galsworthy)

Sometimes, however, a preposition may be separated from the word it refers to and placed at the end of the sentence or clause. In that case it is stressed.

But he sounds as though he knows what he’s talking about. (Wilson)

The preposition may be weakly stressed before a pronoun.

She wrote the words to them herself, and other poems. (Galsworthy)

The preposition is stressed when its meaning is emphasized.

The book was in the table, not on it.

§ 2. As to their morphological structure prepositions fall under the following groups:

(1) simple (in, on, at, for, with, etc.);

(2) derivative (behind, below, across, along, etc.);

(3) compound (inside, outside, within, without, etc.);

(4) composite (because of, in front of, in accordance with, etc.).

§ 3. According to their meaning prepositions may be divided into prepositions of place and direction (in, on, below, under, between, etc.), time (after, before, at, etc.), prepositions expressing abstract relations (отвлеченные отношения) (by, with, because of, with a view to, etc.).

The lexical meaning of some prepositions is quite concrete (e. g. in, below, between, before, after, till, etc.), while that of some other prepositions may be weakened to a great extent (e. g. to, by, of).

For instance, the preposition to generally indicates direction or movement towards something:

Every night Sissy went to Rachel’s lodging, and sat with her in her small neat

room. (Dickens)

But in some cases the lexical meaning of the preposition to is weakened.

...all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. (Ch. Bronte)

Some prepositions are polysemantic and may express different relations; e. g. for:

Never once had Erik sensed the struggle for life. (Wilson) (purpose.)

Even when their eyes had met and her sister had approached the bed, Louisa

lay for minutes looking at her in silence... (Dickens) (time)

She could scarcely move her head for pain and heaviness, her eyes were

strained and sore, and she was very weak. (Dickens) (cause)