Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

complement preposition 

What was she referring to?

Preposition stranding

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Preposition

Present perfect Used to relate events or states taking place in the past to a

present time orientation. It has simple and progressive forms:

We

’ve had that TV set for fifteen years.

(fifteen years ago till now)

So, what

’s been happening since the last time we met? 

(from that moment till now)

The simple form is used to emphasise completed and punctual events:

Advertising agency FCB 

has carried out extensive research on how people on

short-term contracts feel about their jobs.

The present perfect progressive can place greater emphasis on the duration of

an event up to the present moment to indicate an uninterrupted action:

I

’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.

Proform Proforms function to substitute for the object, complement, adjunct, or

the whole clause in a sentence. For instance, definite pronouns (he, this, those)

or indefinite pronouns (one, all, none), auxiliary verbs (do, have), or adverbs

(so, similarly) can be used as proforms:

A: Oh those cakes look lovely.

B: They do, don’t they? 

(they is a proform for those cakes; do is a proform for look lovely)

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Ellipsis; Substitution

Progressive (or continuous) A grammatical aspect which sees time in terms of its

unfolding at the moment of speaking, and observes actions and events as

incomplete, in progress or developing. It is realised by auxiliary verb be and the

-ing form of a lexical verb:

We 

are leaving now.

They 

are travelling through Italy at the moment.

In this grammar book the term progressive is used in preference to continuous.

Pronoun An item used to substitute for the references to entities which lexical

noun phrases indicate:

Your boxes of photos

have been delivered. 

They’re in the kitchen.

(they = your boxes of photos)

The main sub-classifications include personal (he, you), possessive (his, yours),

reflexive (himself, yourselves), reciprocal (each other, one another), relative

(who, which, that), interrogative (who, what, which), demonstrative (this,

these, that, those

), and indefinite (some, none).