"I have lived here since before the war."
Is this sentence grammatically correct ?
Shouldn't the correct form be - (since + a point of time), where the point of time is a noun ?
*****
NOT a teacher *****
Debpriya,
I may be wrong (repeat: wrong), but I think that some books
explain two prepositions together like that by saying that
a sentence such as yours is a short way to say:
I have lived here since
a time before the war.
We can then say that "a time" is the noun object of the
preposition "since" and that "the war" is the noun object of the
preposition "before." The prepositional phrase "before the war"
modifies (belongs to/ is placed under/ further explains) the
noun "time." The prepositional phrase "since a time" in turn
modifies the verb "have lived."
*****
Here is an example from one of my books of two prepositions together:
Come out
from behind those whiskers.
The author says that it is probably an ellipsis (missing words) of:
Come out
from your hiding place
behind those whiskers.
*****
NOT a teacher *****