The order of prepositional phrases in learner English : corpus-based analysis

The articles and monographs read in preparation for this thesis consistently lead to the conclusion that a law by Otto Behagel dating back to 1909 is still relevant today. According to his "Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder", meaning ‘law of the growing elements’, the larger constituent follows the smaller one. In what follows, a more recent reflection is offered on the case that is made by Behagel (1909); nonetheless, it is noted here as well that his "Gesetz der wachsenden Glieder" is still one of the core issues in processing efficiency theory.