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Build air 940 Posted 8 years ago
Grammar

Can a preposition be elliptical?

In the following sentence: The club offers your dog all the comforts of home. Is there an elliptical preposition ‘of’ between the words ‘all’ and ‘the?’ Or, with the word ‘dog’ being the indirect object, would that make the word ‘all’ a pronoun that functions as the direct object? Or, is the word ‘all’ functioning as an adjective, which would make the word ‘all’ an ‘indefinite pronominal adjective,’ which would make the word ‘comforts’ the direct object in the sentence? Thank you for your time.
  

Top answer

The question of "all" vs. "all of" is more one of idiom than of grammar. ) Generally, you need "of" with "all" before certain pronouns (all of me), and never "of" before nouns with no determiner (all birds have feathers).

— Anonymous

  • The question of "all" vs.
  • "all of" is more one of idiom than of grammar.
  • ) Generally, you need "of" with "all" before certain pronouns (all of me), and never "of" before nouns with no determiner (all birds have feathers).
  • The rest of the time, unless I forgot something, people use "of" or not as they choose.
  • I try to limit my use of "all of", because the "of" is almost always unneeded.
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2 Answers
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The question of "all" vs. "all of" is more one of idiom than of grammar. There are times when "of" is necessary (All of us knew it.) and others when it is wrong (All the king's horses ….) Generally, you need "of" with "all" before certain pronouns (all of me), and never "of" before nouns with no determiner (all birds have feathers). The rest of the time, unless I forgot something, people use "

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build air 940The club offers your dog all the comforts of home.

'all' and 'the' are analyzed as determiners. 'comforts' is the head of the NP (noun phrase) that has the function of direct object.

build air 940The club offers your dog all of the comforts of home.

'all' is the head of the NP 'all of th

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