Contextual semantic functions of the nuclear sentence patterns in expending the communicative intention of the speaker and ways of their teaching

+ for: as for, except for, but for
+ from: apart from, away from, as from
+ of: ahead of, because of, inclusive of, instead of, regardless of, out of
+ to: according to, as to, close to, contrary to, due to, next to, on to, near to; on to, owing to, thanks to, up to
+ with: together with, along with
In most two-word prepositions, the meaning is expressed by the first word, the second serving to link it to the complement: according to my information; because of what I said. The forms into and onto can be considered as merged forms, consisting of an adverb (in, on) merged with a preposition to. Some other one-word prepositions were once two words: upon, without, throughout among others. Three-word prepositions. These usually have the form prep + noun + prep (e.g. in conflict with), with the noun sometimes being determined by the (e.g. in the hands of). The first preposition is virtually limited to in, on, by, at, for, with, and the second to of, with, for and to. Two other combinations in common use have an adverb between two occurrences of as: as far as, as well as. as far as, as well as, by means of, by way of, in aid of, in charge of, in view of, in return for, in exchange for, in spite of, in contact with, on top of, on the part of, at the hands of, with regard to, with reference to. Four-word prepositions. All these have the form prep + a/ the + noun + of (e.g. as a result of, at the expense of, on the part of, with the exception of). Sometimes the noun of a complex preposition may be modified by an adjective, as in with the surprising exception of Tom; in close contact with you. PPs with the possessive A small number of PPs containing complex prepositions ending in of have an alternative structure in ’s, no doubt because the complex preposition could also be analysed as a simple preposition with a NG complement: for + the sake of the children; on + behalf of the committee: for the sake of the children; on behalf of the committee; for the children’s sake; on the committee’s behalf. However, non-personal reference is not always used with the genitive form: compare for heaven’s sake, but not *for peace and quiet’s sake. The complement element of a PP is most typically realised by a nominal group, but it may also be realised by the classes of groups and clauses shown below. Simple nouns and pronouns, adjectives and adverbs are treated as ‘groups’ represented by the head: