Abstract

This corpora-based study shows that until by and until before, which are newly observed phraseological units (PUs) in contemporary English, function as complex prepositions (CPs). As an interesting phenomenon of present-day English, two prepositions are put together with a single meaning. Specifically, the prepositions in and on co-occur with various other prepositions, and each resulting prepositional phrase becomes established as a new CP with a single meaning like in at or in on. The combinations until by and until before have not been widely acknowledged and have been regarded as mistakes in previous studies. This study shows the meanings of the two phrases, the process of their establishment as new CPs and the way they gained their new meanings. To this end, the study carries out the following research procedures: (i) showing the frequencies of until by and until before in corpora from the synchronic and diachronic perspectives; (ii) differentiating until by and until before by semantically and syntactically clear regarding how until by and until before are used in context; and (iii) showing the kinds of prepositions that are used with until to form PUs as well as CPs.

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