Revision as of 23:46, 15 May 2013

bound morpheme

• within: en l'espace de, can be used temporally or, less often, spatially.
• without: the opposite of with

• withdraw: take out, remove (v.)
• withhold: hold back (v.) (retenir, refuser)

Some more formal words:

• wherewithal: capacité (financière) (les moyens)
• forthwith: tout de suite

preposition

semantics / case

There are four common meanings for syntactic units introduced by with: the difference between instrument, means, and manner arguments is a continuum. Calling an instrument a means is surely never wrong. It is interesting to note that it is quite frequent to be able to replace "with" by "in" for with-instrument or with-means, but not for with-manner or with-accompaniment.

accompagnement

• We're going with them.
• OK, good, this time the brass will play with us and not against us. (with v. against)

• The old woman with the poodle over there, she said...
• The old woman over there, yeah, the one without a poodle, she said...

participation

• She's been talking with her mother again.
• They've been working with a language school.
• She's struggling with chemo.
• Fighting with the system might be more productive than fighting against the system.

instrument argument

• She watched the boy with the telescope.

An often-cited case: it is difficult to be certain without context whether she was using the telescope to watch a boy who had no telescope, or if she was watching someone who in turn had a telescope. Changing the determiner from "the" to "her" significantly orients the reading towards an instrument argument. (through the telescope)

• You can touch up your CV with OpenOffice, or in Word if you prefer. Some prefer LateX.

means argument

(complément de moyen)

• The kids were covering the table with flowers.
• Her face was covered with chocolate.

(Note that in can also be used here, for a more indifferentiated view of the flowers, and a similar view on the chocolate)

manner argument

She proofread the letter with care. You may not understand the first time around, but with patience, you'll get the hang of it.