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That dish is no longer on the menu.

His name was on the list.

I have the movie on DVD.

I sometimes go to work on a bus.

All shoes are on sale,

The band is currently on tour.

If I want to use on, do I have to look at the verb or auxiliary verb that I used before on, or at the nouns or objects that I'm going to use after on?

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  • On has many meanings; you use it if it conveys the meaning you want. In some cases, on is part of a stock phrase, like on sale. I could say "They have good stuff on sale." and on would be correct, but not because the verb is be.
    – apaderno
    May 26, 2013 at 13:41

1 Answer 1

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Sometimes the preposition is licensed by the preceding verb, sometimes by the preposition's object, sometimes by both.

Trying to come up with rules governing the choice of preposition is hopeless. There are, to be sure, patterns; but every pattern has many exceptions, and you have no way of knowing whether a particular usage is regular or exceptional except by looking it up in a dictionary or corpus.

For instance: That dish is no longer on the menu and His name was on the list exhibit a pattern of using on with items which are members of linear sets. You might from this predict, correctly, This building has been put on the register of Historic Places and I couldn't find his name on the ballot. But you would come a cropper if you extended this prediction to You may find that word on any dictionary or Try looking for his name on the index.

Almost everything about prepositions is idiomatic, governed not by a priori meaning but by historical contingency.

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    I can, of course, decide arbitrarily whether to say "Throw another chair-leg on the fire" or "Throw another chair-leg in the fire". But if metaphorically praising your performance, I can't say "Wow! You're in fire today!". May 26, 2013 at 15:19

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