TENSE TUESDAY: DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS (APOLOGIZE 'FOR')

Good morning, everyone! How’s your week going? I hope it’s going well. 

For today’s Tense Tuesday we are taking a look at the construction APOLOGIZE FOR, which includes an example of a DEPENDENT PREPOSITION (in this case FOR).  Prepositions that follow specific verbs are called DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS when the meaning of the sentence changes depending on the preposition used. Therefore, when we use FOR after APOLOGIZE, the meaning of the sentence is different than if we use a different preposition. 

Verbs with DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS, such as APOLOGIZE FOR, often use the following structure:

Verb preposition object noun/-ing

Example 1: He apologized for being late. 

Example 2: The company apologized for the offensive advert. 

FOR is the DEPENDENT PREPOSITION of the word apologized. 

This does not mean that we cannot follow APOLOGIZE with other prepositions. However, the meanings are not the same. For example, we could say...

He apologized with sincerity. (WITH shows how he apologized.)

He apologized through a card. (THROUGH shows the manner in which he apologized.)

There are many other verbs that have FOR as a dependent preposition. I apologize FOR not looking at them now: we don't have enough time. We will see them again soon in another Daily Vitamin.

Thanks for reading!