Revision as of 23:37, 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)

• She touched up her CV with OpenOffice. (in)

means argument

• The kids were covering the table with flowers.
• Her body was covered with goosebumps.

( Note that in can also be used here, for a more indifferentiated view of the flowers, goosebumps (chair de poule))

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.