Timeline for Difference between "per" and "a"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
13 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 23, 2012 at 10:56 | comment | added | Brett Reynolds | The OED has only recently begun using the DET label and hasn't completed its revisions. Unfortunately, they chose to add it as extra information while continuing to label words as adjectives, pronouns, etc. As for "part of speech" being a blunt instrument, it becomes much sharper when it's used more rigorously. | |
| Mar 23, 2012 at 8:24 | vote | accept | johannes | ||
| Mar 23, 2012 at 8:23 | vote | accept | johannes | ||
| Mar 23, 2012 at 8:23 | |||||
| Mar 23, 2012 at 2:16 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Brett Reynolds: Yes, I think the change was probably sensible. But like I said, usage has shifted anyway. And my OED calls each and every for example, "quasi-pronouns". In some contexts they're interchangeable with per, sometimes only with each other, and sometimes not even that. "Part of speech" categories are something of a blunt instrument when you get down to the details. | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 23:13 | comment | added | Brett Reynolds | I did go overboard saying that it was nonsense. I should have looked at the history of the analysis before reacting. Given the pattern of the other determiners in the same positions, though, doesn't the determiner analysis strike you as more consistent and reasonable than the preposition analysis? | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 22:46 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Brett Reynolds: I don't doubt it. The way we commonly use the word has perhaps shifted a bit over recent years too. I was just making the point that even OED has had different opinions in the past. Calling it preposition isn't ridiculous. Whatever - they're just convenient pigeonholes to put things in. It's not like they're pre-existing template classes, giving rise to the forms we end up using. | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 21:42 | history | edited | Daniel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 22, 2012 at 21:09 | comment | added | Brett Reynolds | @FumbleFingers: The OED says, "b. With adverbs of repetition (as once, twice, many times, oft a day); now classified as the indefinite article: see a adj. 4". | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 21:08 | comment | added | Brett Reynolds | There is an archaic preposition that is now is chiefly a member of compounds (e.g., abroad, abreast, adrift, afloat, ashore, etc.). As I've commented elsewhere, you can replace the determiner a with a variety of other determiners, and there would be no motivation to say that they are prepositions too. | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 21:08 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Brett, Mark: My (slightly out-of-date) OED says under "per prep," Section III 2 a In distributive sense, following words of number or quantity in expressions denoting rate or proportion: For each…, for every…: = a prep.1 8 b, by prep. 24 c. See also per cent, cent1 2. | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 20:59 | comment | added | Mark Beadles | OED says " b. With adverbs of repetition (as once, twice, many times, oft a day); now classified as the indefinite article". So perhaps we can say that historically this usage of a was as a preposition, but that it is increasingly being analyzed as a determiner. | |
| Mar 22, 2012 at 20:31 | history | edited | Daniel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 37 characters in body
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| Mar 22, 2012 at 20:25 | history | answered | Daniel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |