relative clause preposition (stranding)

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 102 in the category of CLAUSES that are relative is defined as:

defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses ending in a preposition, with ‘who/which/that’ as the complement of the preposition.

*This point overlaps other categories and is already covered here.

Here are the 4 most common prepositions at the end of a sentence.  When we do a manual search on the concordances, we find that more than half of them do not contain the ‘relative pronoun + clause’ we are looking for.

 

1 WITH . 612732

 

2 FOR . 570559

The new site matches you with housing that you qualify for.

The new site matches you with housing that you qualify for.

3 TO . 454415

 

4 OF . 311474

 

The above pattern allows us to return to iWeb and search for clusters.  Interestingly our most common one is B2 on EVP.

1 THAT I KNOW OF . 3387
2 THAT WE KNOW OF . 752

that|which|who _p* _v* _i* .

3 WHO YOU TALK TO . 454 (note ‘depending on’)

4 THAT I WORK WITH . 394
5 THAT YOU CARE ABOUT . 346
6 THAT WE WORK WITH . 332
7 THAT IT COMES WITH . 210
8 THAT YOU WORK WITH . 200
9 THAT THEY CARE ABOUT . 188

10 WHICH I AGREE WITH . 173

11 THAT WE KNOW ABOUT . 162
12 THAT THEY WORK WITH . 154
13 THAT WE CARE ABOUT . 146
14 THAT I AGREE WITH . 135
15 THAT IT CAME WITH . 130
16 THAT YOU SPEAK OF . 120

17 WHO IT BELONGS TO . 119

18 THAT YOU QUALIFY FOR . 113

19 THAT I DISAGREE WITH . 112
20 THAT THEY USED TO . 109

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