pied piping

A term used in GENERATIVE LINGUISTICS for one of the PROCESSES involved in DERIVING such SENTENCES as To whom did you turn for help?: the PREPOSITION OPTIONALLY moves to the front of the CLAUSE, following its WH-NOUN phrase OBJECT – just as, the analogy suggests, the rats in the traditional tale followed the Pied Piper out of Hamelin. A contrast can be drawn with cases where the preposition is left behind (STRANDED), as in Who did you turn to for help?