grammaticality - Is it acceptable to start a sentence with the preposition 'except' rather than 'except for'?

The sentence

Except the buildings built towards the end of his life, the buildings

erected in Istanbul can be assumed to be his.

was recently used in a question here.

I edited to replace 'except' with the compound preposition 'except for'. I'm very unhappy with the original, but don't like to assume my gut reactions are necessarily correct.

CDO gives:

Except or except for? from English Grammar Today

We often use except and except for as prepositions to mean ‘not
including’ or ‘excluding’. They are followed by a noun or noun phrase
or a wh-clause. Both except and except for are correct after a
noun:

I like all fruit except (for) oranges. (excluding oranges)

Except for Louisa, who’s away in Berlin this weekend, we’ll all be at

the party.

She likes going to most sports events, except cricket matches.

This shows the choice of 'Except for' to start a sentence-initial prepositional phrase, but does not go so far as to state that the choice of the simple preposition is incorrect.

The nearest (but really reversed) question I can find on ELU is essentially

Is "Are there any vegetables except for asparagus?" correct?

to which Peter Shor provides the tantalysing answer (with which I largely agree):

I think what's wrong is the "for". [I'd say 'very iffy' in all but some unusual contexts]

Are there any vegetables except asparagus?

The grammar of when to use "except for" and when to use "except" is
governed by [a] quite complex set of rules (often, you can use either).
There probably is a correct and complete description of how this works
somewhere on the internet, but I haven't found it, so I can't tell you
why you should use "except" here; but it just feels right.

Can authorities be found giving this correct and complete description of the complex set of rules governing when to use "except for" and when to use "except" , on the internet or elsewhere?

ambiguity - Can "myself" stand for both "me" and "I" in "my mother and I/me"?

In one of my older questions I asked for an explanation of the difference between “people like you” and “people like yourself”, where it's clear that yourself can stand instead of you in such sentence.

What bothers me more is another, more difficult situation:

---

Let's define the correct sentence:

My mother and I were standing at the bus stop.

Now, in the above sentence, can I emphasize my own person by doing the following?

My mother and myself were standing at the bus stop.

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Also, trying with another sentence, but a bit difference:

They saw my mother and me standing at the bus stop.

Can I do the same with this sentence too?

They saw my mother and myself standing at the bus stop.

---

If both of the above situations are correct, that means that myself can be used instead of both me and I, thus becoming ambiguous?

grammatical number - What is the correct syntax for a plural possessive of a word already ending in s?

Before you vote to close as a duplicate, note that these two questions deal with similar issues to this, but none of them address all three criteria of this question:

• The singular already ends with an s.


• I am dealing with multiple of the thing.


• I want the possessive of all of them in general.

The singular is class, and the plural is classes. The singular possessive is class's (as addressed here).

What is the plural possessive? Is it classes's, or classes'?

Answer

It is classes', which sounds the same as the singular class's.

I would have thought this was a general rule for plural nouns ending -s', -es' or -ies'.

grammar - What's the best way to find the subject in a sentence?

What's the best way to find the subject in a sentence?

How do you define a subject?
I am especially curious about such cases, in which the subject seems to be represented by more than one word:

The majority of people didn't mind the new policy.

A great number of students went on strike yesterday.

Addition:

and such cases where the passive voice is used:

The man was bit by a dog.

Children were frightened by the wolf.

Also, please, consider such cases with ergative verbs:

I broke my chair.

The chair broke.

The chair was broken by me.

Answer

Subjects are noun phrases, and usually have more than one word in them, but they can be just one word, if there are no modifiers. Subject is a grammatical concept restricted to languages with nominative-accusative systems,
like most Indo-European languages. Languages like Basque, Georgian, Quiché, or Pitjantjatjara,
which have absolutive-ergative systems, do not support a meaningful concept of Subject.

Virtually all tensed English clauses (including all simple sentences), require a Subject constituent.
Besides its position before the verb phrase, the grammatical properties of a Subject include:

• number agreement with the verb phrase
  The ladies are arriving ~ The lady is arriving


• inversion with auxiliary in questions
  The old man in the trenchcoat is coming => Is the old man in the trenchcoat coming?


• pronominalization in tag questions
  Those guys are the ones, aren't they?


• upstairs control of A-Equi deletion, plus downstairs deletion by Equi
  Bill wanted to see the painting = Bill wanted (for Bill) to see the painting.


• promotion by Subject-Raising (often obligatory)
  *For there to be beer in the fridge tends => There tends to be beer in the fridge.


• movement and optional deletion by Passive
  Acme Construction erected this building in 1936 => This building was erected in 1936.


• contraction with auxiliary (especially pronouns)
  The old woman has/is gone now => The old woman's gone now

In addition, there are semantic criteria governed by predicates. Most predicates will only accept certain types of noun phrase as subjects, and lots of tests can be fashioned with different verbs.

syntactic analysis - The use of "whoever" or "whomever" in complex sentence

Should the following say whoever or whomever. And why?

Each of us is free to pretend to be whoever/whomever we wish to be.

This sentence needs an object, right?

puns - I don't get this joke. Is it some kind of play on "water, too?"

I don't get this joke. Is it some kind of play on "water, too?"

Transcript:

Two scientists walk into a bar. The first says, "I'll have some H2O." The second says, "I'll have a glass of water too. Why did you say H2O? It's the end of the day and there's no need to talk about work." The first scientist stares at his drink, angry that his assassination plan has failed.

grammar - single "as" or double "as"

In terms of using "as". Are the first and the third sentences correct? Or should I just use the second and fourth one?

(1) he plays soccer well as(just like) his father used to.

(2) he plays soccer as well as his father used to.

(3) he is good as his father was.

(4) he is as good as his father was.

Answer

I don't think 1 and 3 should really be used.

Sentence 3 may turn to an implication that since his father was good, he turned out to the same but that won't really match how other sentences are framed and may cause confusion.

I'd just say to use the original form.

I hope I helped.