OE bereafian, which is one of the basic verbs of deprivation in Old English and developed into ModE bereave, can occur with three kinds of preposition: of, at, and on. OE "X bereafian Y of Z" comes from "X bereafian + Accusative + Genitive" and can be syntactically tantamount to ModE "X bereave Y of Z". However, "X bereafian Y at Z" and "X bereafian Y on Z" are syntactically and semantically different from "X bereafian Y of Z". Both "at NP" and "on NP" in the constructions must be interpreted as prepositional phrases of place.