Prepositions 101: How to Reduce Phrasal Prepositions to Single Words

Prepositions can add valuable detail and complexity to sentences, but they also invite nominalizations, passive constructions, and bloat. When these single-word connectors pile up in writing, you can kill the flow of your sentence and confuse your reader. What could make this worse? Multi-word prepositions.

Rather than giving you a list of multi-word prepositions and their single-word replacements, let’s discuss why the multi-word versions are so much worse for readers. If you were looking for a list, here it is:

For more examples and discussions on phrasal prepositions in legal writing, consider 10.42-10.44 of the Redbook by Bryan Garner and pages 170–71 of Lifting the Fog of Legalese by Joseph Kimble.

Now let’s back up and cover some essential terminology.

All About Prepositions: 3 Terms, Different Meanings

For this article to be helpful, you must understand—and not confuse—three key terms: prepositions, prepositional phrases, and phrasal prepositions.

• Prepositions: The shortest of the bunch. These are words that connect nouns, pronouns, or phrases to other parts of a sentence. They usually indicate time, place, direction, or method. Examples: over, at, under, through, with.
  
  
• Prepositional Phrases: The longest of the bunch. These are phrases that start with a preposition and end with a noun, pronoun, noun phrase, or clause. Examples: under the desk; according to research. Under the desk is a prepositional phrase with the basic preposition under; according to research is a prepositional phrase with the phrasal preposition according to.
  
  
• Phrasal Prepositions: Also known as multi-word prepositions. Usually two or three words that function together as a single preposition, carrying the weight and value of a single word. Examples: in excess of; according to; in the amount of. But why say something with three words when you can say it with one?

Writers often confuse these terms because they all involve prepositions. But using these words interchangeably will keep you from spotting wordy writing and improving it. It’s also just wrong.

Why Writers Are Drawn to Prepositions

Because prepositions show relationships and add detail, they can be valuable and alluring, but they can also be speed bumps that slow reading. More is not better. Using three or more prepositions in a single sentence or expanding a single-word preposition into a multi-word one does not make you sound smarter.

How Syntactic Hierarchy Aids Understanding

Phrasal prepositions muddle your writing, but you may not immediately know how or why. For our explanation, let’s look to theoretical linguistics.

Our brains organize words within sentences into hierarchies. We then use these hierarchies to decide whether a sentence is grammatically correct. If a sentence doesn’t follow the hierarchy, it is not grammatical. (There are debates in theoretical linguistics about which parts of speech are the highest in the hierarchy, but most linguists agree that, in English, the main verb of the sentence is the most important head of that sentence (the head of the heads), since English is a verb-centric language.)

Parsing a Sentence with Headwords

Every sentence or phrase has a headword that determines the meaning or linguistic function of those words. The headword shows you where to divide your syntactic building blocks. All other words modify the headword and are lower in the hierarchy of building materials. To learn how to find your headword, see this article.

Any part of speech can be the head of a part of the sentence. Words that modify a head are lower in the hierarchy, even if they are the head of another part of the sentence. So a preposition can be the head of a prepositional phrase, and the noun phrase that comes after the preposition modifies that head (and is lower in the hierarchy).

This is a drawing of a syntax tree of a prepositional phrase, where PP denotes a prepositional phrase, AdvP is an adverb phrase, Mod is a modifier, P is a preposition, and NP is a noun phrase. These trees help us visualize syntactic hierarchies:

Image Credit

How Phrasal Prepositions Confuse Hierarchies

Phrasal prepositions do not fit nicely into these hierarchies. Unlike prepositional phrases that have a single headword followed by an object (typically a noun phrase), phrasal prepositions expand the headword into multiple words.

This expansion makes the sentence more difficult to understand for three reasons:

1. It’s harder to determine which words are part of which syntactic units or building blocks
2. It’s harder to quickly identify the most important word that should serve as the headword
3. It’s harder to determine the hierarchy of the syntactic structure

These phrasal prepositions are confusing because individual words that seem like they should be important have less importance when combined, and the combination of words carries the same weight as a single-word preposition. We instinctively expect multiple words to be more valuable than single words, and we stumble when they’re not. The pause may be momentary, but it still reduces comprehension.

To make matters worse, most words in common phrasal prepositions are a different part of speech when they stand alone (typically an adjective). Adjectives are lower in the syntactic hierarchy. So when a reader first encounters a word in a phrasal preposition, that word may appear to compete for dominance and value in the sentence. Again, this power struggle causes the reader to re-read the sentence to determine what role that word is playing.

Applying the Theory of Linguistic Hierarchy to Phrasal Prepositions

Let’s take what we’ve learned and apply it to a sentence you might find in any definition section of any legal document:

“Advisory Committee” means the committee established pursuant to Subsection 8(1).

The phrasal preposition pursuant to cannot create a single head. Pursuant feels like the more important word (more important than to), but on its own, pursuant is an adjective. It’s not a preposition until it’s combined with to. To is a preposition, but it can’t stand alone and maintain the meaning of pursuant to, and one definition of the head of a phrase is that it does not depend on the words around it to link it to another part of the sentence.

Because these prepositions are grammatically correct, hierarchies must exist, but linguists debate the best way to portray them, and you can be sure that your readers will be doing a double-take, too. Our brains rely heavily on phrase-with-a-head hierarchy to find meaning in sentences, so constructions with ambiguous hierarchies are harder to understand.

That’s a lot of work just to understand a sentence—let alone decide how you feel about its content! The easiest way to avoid this confusion is to pare multi-word prepositions down to their single-word counterparts.

How WordRake Transforms Phrasal Prepositions

It may feel like you have to know about theoretical linguistics to recognize what a phrasal preposition is and when you need to edit it for clarity, but you don’t. WordRake’s got you covered. Our software makes edits to hundreds of different constructions involving phrasal prepositions to reduce your confusing prepositional phrases to ones with an obvious head (main preposition).

In many cases, WordRake reduces the phrasal preposition to a basic preposition:

pursuant to ⇒ under

Pursuant to Under Section 4.5, Gonzalez has waived his right of redemption.

The fact that That the mortgage was secured by the Property pursuant to under a deed of trust (impliedly with the power of sale) means the parties agreed that Bells Franco could seize and sell the property to satisfy the debt should plaintiff stop making payments on the loan.

The trustee has satisfied his burden pursuant to applicable law of the state of Colorado under Colorado law and timely commenced his claim under Section 345.

inasmuch as ⇒ because

Inasmuch as Because a necessary step in the pre-flight process is checking to make sure the controls move freely, a problem with rigging would have been detected before takeoff.

In Fiorito v. Krups, this Court held consolidation to be justified inasmuch as because “both actions involve the identical set of facts, seek the same relief, and there is no evidence that any party will be prejudiced by the consolidation...”

in order to -> to

The king was beseeching aid from foreign rulers in order to crush his own people.

Some sites require that a visitor be given permission (be “friended”) by the user in order to access some or all of the user’s content.

prior to ⇒ before

Have you seen any documents that would show that Mr. Smith was treated for this condition prior to the time that before he applied for life insurance?

Many planes were seen in the area prior to the time of before the crash.

Any records kept prior to before that time period will be audited.

with regard to ⇒ regarding

In 1994, the FTC obtained a consent order from the American Tobacco Company with regard to regarding advertising for Carlton.

with respect to ⇒ regarding

Any actions taken by the Indenture Trustees with respect to regarding Allowed Senior Notes Claims and Allowed Subordinated Notes Claims not for the purposes authorized shall be void.

in spite of (the fact that) ⇒ although, despite

In spite of the fact that Although several techniques can be used to set up display ads, remarketing is often considered one of the most effective.

The 81-year-old Whitefield continued working in spite of despite poor health.

He was an excellent swimmer, in spite of the fact that he was never despite his never being enrolled in any lessons.

in such a manner/way as to ⇒ to

A legislative enactment covering a subject dealt with by an older law, but not repealing that law, is harmonized with its predecessor in such a manner as to give effect to both.

For research on the birds during the breeding season, remote sensing equipment would need to be placed on sites while birds are not present in such a way as to avoid disturbing the animals.

except when / where ⇒ unless

There was little to remind locals of the outside world, except when unless a gossiping salesman came along.

Navigation Law vests no rights in the State except to the extent that unless the defendants individually could seek coverage.

Most of these boundaries are defined by fences except where unless natural barriers effectively control livestock.

for a period of ⇒ for

They lived on the property for a period of seven months.

The loan agreement includes a discounted introductory fixed interest rate of 5 percent for an initial period of two years.

In more advanced cases, WordRake cuts and reorganizes words to streamline the sentence, usually to make it more verb centric. Here are just a few examples of complex edits that WordRake makes to sentences with phrasal prepositions:

As far as she’s concerned, She thinks the company’s commitment to sustainability is an important part of its identity.

Borrower shall make all of its Partial Payments and any other payments pursuant to this Agreement by wire transfer.

A Land Contract is an installment contract between a buyer and a seller for the sale of real property, in which complete ownership of the property is not transferred until all payments pursuant to the contract have been made.

Pursuant to our conversation As we discussed, you are to arrive no later than next Monday morning.

The Boat License issued pursuant hereto may be used by a duly authorized agent or employee of the Licensee if the employee is aboard the boat; the Licensee shall continue to be responsible.

The three organizations work together pursuant to a series of under several mutual cooperation agreements.

Pursuant to a series of Under several reforms enacted by the Texas legislature, Smith’s appeal of his conviction would proceed along two tracks.

The blast pattern and shot design were obtained from the contractor prior to each blast being before each blast was made for them to be reviewed and approved by Wind Energy Inc.

In spite of being legally obligated Despite the legal duty to make annual payments to landowners, the oil and gas company did not pay lessees for several years.

In some cases, prepositions force readers to re-read a sentence because they are homonyms with words that are another part of speech. When WordRake’s Simplicity mode is active, these ambiguous prepositions become more recognizable prepositions to make sentences more accessible to audiences that benefit from Plain Language:

Absent Without measures that can help to prevent these problems, the Proposed Action’s would do more harm than good.

Provided that If the plane leaves on time, I will arrive at the hotel by 7:00 p.m.

His candidacy collapsed when some party members withheld their support after his attacks on the president’s foreign policy decisions regarding about the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

If you’ve read this far, it’s clear you think good writing matters. But trimming multi-word prepositions to single-word replacements is just the start! You’ll also want to revise sentences to reduce prepositional phrases to no more than three or four and review the remaining sentences to transform them into active voice, since the preposition by often signals a passive construction. Who has the time to go through these exercises for every sentence?!

Save time and get better results with WordRake. WordRake deftly handles phrasal prepositions and other complex prepositional constructions to create stronger, clearer sentences. Try it for free for 7 days.

About the Authors

Ivy B. Grey is the Chief Strategy & Growth Officer for WordRake. Before joining the team, she practiced bankruptcy law for ten years. In 2020, Ivy was recognized as an Influential Woman in Legal Tech by ILTA. She has also been recognized as a Fastcase 50 Honoree and included in the Women of Legal Tech list by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. Follow Ivy on Twitter @IvyBGrey or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Danielle Cosimo is a Language Usage Analyst for WordRake. Before joining the team, she was a translator and editor for non-native English speakers applying to degree programs in the United States and the UK. Danielle is formally trained in linguistics and has a certificate in computer programming. She is fluent in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. She applies her interdisciplinary knowledge to create WordRake’s editing algorithms.