pied-piping

British  

noun

1. transformational grammar the principle that a noun phrase may take with it the rest of a prepositional phrase or a larger noun phrase in which it is contained, when moved in a transformation. For example, when the interrogative pronoun is moved to initial position, other words are moved too, as in to whom did you speak?

---

Example Sentences

The pied-piping rule allows the what to pull the at with it to the front of the sentence, yielding At what are you looking?

From Literature

Pied-piping is also a good choice when a stranded preposition would get lost in a hubbub of little grammatical words, such as One of the beliefs which we can be highly confident in is that other people are conscious.

From Literature

The pied-piping rule allows the "what" to pull the "at" with it to the front of the sentence, yielding "At what are you looking?" and similar clauses, such as "The better with which to see you," or "It's you of whom she's thinking."

From The Guardian