Is the preposition used with substitute same / fixed in all sentences or it changes with meaning ? I tried to find my answer from google and found sentences mostly using for with substitute, on oxford dictionary website its mentioned that verb substitute is traditionally followed by for
so are there any exceptions to this rule ?
I have confusion between to and for in the following sentence.
It is not a substitute ____ the formal criminal justice system, but a good backup to reduce its workload .
What should come in the blank ? Substitute for or substitute to ?
Best Answer
"...substitute for the criminal justice system..." is correct in your example. You always substitute something for something else.
I can think of a situation in which you'd use "to" after "substitute":
However, in that example you're just not saying the part where you've substituted something for something else, shortening the sentence. The "to" phrase isn't telling us what was substituted; it's just telling us why something was substituted. We can include it with the other part:
or
The "to" has nothing to do with "substitute", which pretty much always takes "for".