OBS. 11.--Many writers seem to suppose, that no preposition can govern more than one object. Thus L. Murray, and his followers: "The ellipsis of the preposition, as well as of the verb, is seen in the following instances: 'He went into the abbeys, halls, and public buildings;' that is, 'He went into the abbeys, he went into the halls, and he went into the public buildings.'--'He also went through all the streets, and lanes of the city;' that is, 'Through all the streets, and through all the lanes,' &c."--Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 219. See the same interpretations in Ingersoll's Gram., p. 155; Merchant's, 100; Picket's, 211; Alger's, 73; Fish's, 147; Guy's, 91; Adams's, 82; R. C. Smith's, 183; Hamlin's, 105; Putnam's, 139; Weld's, 292. Now it is plain, that in neither of these examples is there any such ellipsis at all. Of the three prepositions, the first governs three nouns; the second, two; and the third, one only. But the last, (which is of,) has two antecedents, streets and lanes, the comma after streets being wrong; for the author does not speak of all the streets in the world, but of all the streets and lanes of a particular city. Dr. Ash has the same example without the comma, and supposes it only an ellipsis of the preposition through, and even that supposition is absurd. He also furnished the former example, to show an ellipsis, not of the verb went, but only of the preposition into; and in this too he was utterly wrong. See Ash's Gram., p. 100. Bicknell also, whose grammar appeared five years before Murray's, confessedly copied the same examples from Ash; and repeated, not the verb and its nominative, but only the prepositions through and into, agreeably to Ash's erroneous notion. See his Grammatical Wreath, Part i, p. 124. Again the principles of Murray's supposed ellipses, are as inconsistent with each other, as they are severally absurd. Had the author explained the second example according to his notion of the first, he should have made it to mean, 'He also went through all the streets of the city, and he also went through all the lanes of the city.' What a pretty idea is this for a principle of grammar! And what a multitude of admirers are pretending to carry it out in parsing! One of the latest writers on grammar says, that, "Between him and me" signifies, "Between him, and between me!"--Wright's Philosophical Gram., p. 206. And an other absurdly resolves a simple sentence into a compound one, thus: "'There was a difficulty between John, and his brother.' That is, there was a difficulty between John, and there was a difficulty between his brother."--James Brown's English Syntax, p. 127; and again, p. 130.
OBS. 12.--Two prepositions are not unfrequently connected by a conjunction, and that for different purposes, thus: (1.) To express two different relations at once; as, "The picture of my travels in and around Michigan."--Society in America, i, 231. (2.) To suggest an alternative in the relation affirmed; as, "The action will be fully accomplished at or before the time."--Murray's Gram., i, 72. Again: "The First Future Tense represents the action as yet to come, either with or without respect to the precise time."--Ib.; and Felton's Gram., p. 23. With and without being direct opposites, this alternative is a thing of course, and the phrase is an idle truism. (3.) To express two relations so as to affirm the one and deny the other; as, "Captain, yourself are the fittest to live and reign not over, but next and immediately under the people."--Dryden. Here, perhaps, "the people" may be understood after over. (4.) To suggest a mere alternative of words; as, "NEGATIVELY, adv. With or by denial."--Webster's Dict. (5.) To add a similar word, for aid or force; as, "Hence adverbs of time were necessary, over and above the tenses."--See Murray's Gram., p. 116. "To take effect from and after the first day of May."--Newspaper.
OBS. 13.--In some instances, two prepositions come directly together, so as jointly to express a sort of compound relation between what precedes the one and what follows the other: as, "And they shall sever the wicked from among the just."--Matt., xiii, 49. "Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord."--Numb., xvii, 9. "Come out from among them."--2 Cor., vi, 17. "From Judea, and from beyond Jordan."--Matt. iv, 25. "Nor a lawgiver from between his feet."--Gen., xlix, 10. Thus the preposition from, being itself adapted to the ideas of motion and separation, easily coincides with any preposition of place, to express this sort of relation; the terms however have a limited application, being used only between a verb and a noun, because the relation itself is between motion and the place of its beginning: as, "The sand slided from beneath my feet."--Dr. Johnson. In this manner, we may form complex prepositions beginning with from, to the number of about thirty; as, from amidst, from around, from before, from behind, &c. Besides these, there are several others, of a more questionable character, which are sometimes referred to the same class; as, according to, as to, as for, because of, instead of, off of, out of, over against, and round about. Most or all of these are sometimes resolved in a different way, upon the assumption that the former word is an adverb; yet we occasionally find some of them compounded by the hyphen: as, "Pompey's lieutenants, Afranius and Petreius, who lay over-against him, decamp suddenly."--Rowe's Lucan, Argument to B. iv. But the common fashion is, to write them separately; as, "One thing is set over against an other."--Bible.
OBS. 14.--It is not easy to fix a principle by which prepositions may in all cases be distinguished from adverbs. The latter, we say, do not govern the objective case; and if we add, that the former do severally require some object after them, it is clear that any word which precedes a preposition, must needs be something else than a preposition. But this destroys all the doctrine of the preceding paragraph, and admits of no such thing as a complex preposition; whereas that doctrine is acknowledged, to some extent or other, by every one of our grammarians, not excepting even those whose counter-assertions leave no room for it. Under these circumstances, I see no better way, than to refer the student to the definitions of these parts of speech, to exhibit examples in all needful variety, and then let him judge for himself what disposition ought to be made of those words which different grammarians parse differently.
