English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I keep seeing both versions and I can't find a definite answer from googling.
For example, which of these would be correct?
"Although this dilemma poses a problem to the proposed view..."
"Although this dilemma poses a problem for the proposed view..."
I believe both are acceptable, though the context is changed in each: "...to the proposed view..." tells me the problem affects the proposal itself where "...for the proposed view..." tells me the problem affects the implementation of the proposal.
You can't ask which is correct, since neither of them is ungrammatical.
You can only ask which is more common. Specific contexts aside, the more common expression in general, at least according to Google Books Ngram Viewer as related to the printed word, is poses a problem for.
Which of the two you use would be a matter of personal choice.
There can also be a subtle difference in interpretation, where for might be referencing something as it's being considered, while to could be thought of as affecting something after the fact. However, that's not always how it would be interpreted.
