a preposition comes close in the sentence to

[hhtt21]

"Sometimes a preposition comes close in the sentence to "cause/causing" but not directly after."

What does it mean by "come close in the sentence to" ?

https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/t...happened/page2

Thank you.

[Piscean]

There are very few words between cause/causing and the preposition.

[hhtt21]

Is "come close" used as in the question a phrasal verb? I cannot determine if it is a phrasal verb, but there is phrasal verb as "come close"

Thank you.

[Matthew Wai]

I consider 'close' an adverb modifying the verb 'come'.
I think 'come close' is not a phrasal verb according to the following:
'Phrasal verbs are idiomatic expressions, combining verbs and prepositions ...'── quoted from https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/phrasal-verbs/

[Piscean]

'Phrasal verbs are idiomatic expressions, combining verbs and prepositions ...'

That's one definition. Some writers consider the non-verb parts of a phrasal verb to be adverbs, others call them particles. Some writers differentiate between phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs and present both as sub-classes of multi-word verbs; some consider prepositional verbs to be a sub-class of phrasal verbs; and some use different terminology altogether.

Whatever they are called, there is no general agreement on which verbs followed by a preposition/adverb/ particle are phrasal verbs and which are not.

[hhtt21]

"Sometimes a preposition comes close in the sentence to "cause/causing" but not directly after."

What does it mean by "come close in the sentence to" ?

https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/246738-have-happened/page2

Can we say that: 1. Sometimes a preposition comes close to "cause/causing" in the sentence but not directly after.
2. Sometimes a preposition in the sentence come close to "cause/causing" in the sentence but not directly after.
Thank you.

[emsr2d2]

hhtt21, there was no reason to start a new thread to query what I posted in that other thread. You could have just quoted it and asked me directly what I meant. You keep opening new threads which refer back to the contents of other threads. It's unnecessary and is getting far too convoluted.

[hhtt21]

hhtt21, there was no reason to start a new thread to query what I posted in that other thread. You could have just quoted it and asked me directly what I meant. You keep opening new threads which refer back to the contents of other threads. It's unnecessary and is getting far too convoluted.

But they could deteriorate the flow of the topic, because of they are off-topic. Would not it be better opening a new thread and discuss them, of course after a search.

Thank you.

[Piscean]

No, it would not.