With

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There is not much argument about the position of with in the class of prepositions, those small words whose function is to establish relations between objects of discourse.


semantics / case

There are four common meanings for syntactic units introduced by with: the first is the notion of accompaniment: "going with" = "going along". Then there are three other possible meanings for the with-clause designating an instrument, means, or manner. Deciding whether something represents an instrument, means, or manner arguments is often difficult. Instruments are probably a subset of means, and the difference between means and manner is often a question of voicing or agency.

Most important, perhaps, on a semantic level is that the subject is included in the set defined in the predicate. I will call this specific use a "conjunctive preposition"

conjunctive preposition

accompaniment

  • We're going with them.
  • The conductor said, "Ok, good, now 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.
  • You're playing with fire.

set membership

set = ensemble

  • Her? She's not with me. I don't know who she is. (-- But, she says she's your sister, Madam! (-- oh right, her.) )
  • Put it with the other bills, we'll deal with it all Monday.
  • File it with the June data.
  • I'm not with Apple, no, I work for Fedex.
  • He's still got some influence with the President, but he certainly doesn't have influence over her. (with = auprès de)


SQL syntax: with-clauses can be used to name and execute very complicated database potentially consisting of long sets of queries succinctly. Ref. http://www.orafaq.com/node/1879

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.

{...} in flowers
{...} in chocolate

manner argument

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


bound morpheme

A bound morpheme: a sequence of sounds considered to belong to a longer word.

  • 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
  • notwithstanding: nonobstant

etymology

« Old English wið "against, opposite, toward," a shortened form related to wiðer, from Proto-Germanic *withro- "against" (cf. Old Saxon withar "against," Old Norse viðr "against, with, toward, at," Middle Dutch, Dutch weder, Dutch weer "again," Gothic wiþra "against, opposite"), from PIE *wi-tero-, literally "more apart," from root *wi- "separation" (cf. Sanskrit vi, Avestan vi- "asunder," Sanskrit vitaram "further, farther," Old Church Slavonic vutoru "other, second").

Sense shifted in Middle English to denote association, combination, and union, partly by influence of Old Norse vidh, and also perhaps by Latin cum "with" (as in pugnare cum "fight with"). In this sense, it replaced Old English mid "with," which survives only as a prefix (e.g. midwife). Original sense of "against, in opposition" is retained in compounds such as withhold, withdraw, withstand.

Often treated as a conjunction by Icon jokercolor.gif ungrammatical writers Icon jokercolor.gif and used where and would be correct. »

source: online etymology [1]