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Is there any online dictionary or database of prepositional phrases? What I would like is to enter e. g. "justification" and it would give me: "justification to somebody", "justification of something", and other possibilities (optionally with description of the meaning of each phrase).

I found this website http://www.englishpage.com/prepositions/verb_preposition.html. This is almost what I want, but it contains only few examples. I am looking for more complete list. Maybe some online dictionary might provide me with what I want, but dictionary.reference.com, which I use, does not list prepositional phrases with words (right?).

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Wouldn't any dictionary do that? – user1579 Apr 18 '11 at 21:41
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I am a bit confused. Justification is not a verb. – RegDwighт♦ Apr 18 '11 at 21:46
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That's also right, actually I wasn't sure about what to answer but I guess he got confused? – Alenanno Apr 18 '11 at 21:48
Justification is indeed noun. I mean any part of speech, not only verbs. I have updated my question. – Steves Apr 20 '11 at 13:29
Then you're asking the use of prepositions in ANY context? That's quite a wide thing :D – Alenanno Apr 21 '11 at 7:37

1 Answer

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You're asking about Government in Linguistics, right? I think the best way (and maybe the only one, even if I'm not aware of such lists available for English since it's not really a Case-based language) is to study each verb on its own.

But try searching these keywords: government verbs, etc.

Don't confuse this with Phrasal Verbs, which are something slightly different:
"Government" in Linguistics means what "case" the verb governs, while a Phrasal verb is a verb which, put together with a preposition, usually, changes its meaning!

For example:

To find = Who? What?

The verb "to find" here governs an accusative case, which usually means Direct Object. You find someone/something not "prep. + someone/something".

But if you say:

To find out = What? (edit: there exists also "to find someone out" but even here the meaning slightly changes, although this wasn't the point.)

Here "to find out" doesn't mean "to find something outside" (I'm making it an extreme example to make it clearer), but means to discover.

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@Alain Pannetier: Thanks for the correction, I didn't notice it... :D – Alenanno Apr 19 '11 at 9:14
Thank you for your response. I didn't know about Government before. I am probably looking for something like that. I have updated my question. – Steves Apr 20 '11 at 13:40

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