Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various semantic roles (''of'', ''for''). A preposition or postposition typically combines with a

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

, this being called its

complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class ...

, or sometimes

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

. A preposition comes before its complement; a postposition comes after its complement. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions – words such as ''in'', ''under'' and ''of'' precede their objects, such as ''in England'', ''under the table'', ''of Jane'' – although there are a few exceptions including "ago" and "notwithstanding", as in "three days ago" and "financial limitations notwithstanding". Some languages that use a different word order have postpositions instead, or have both types. The

phrase In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...

formed by a preposition or postposition together with its complement is called a

prepositional phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circ ...

(or postpositional phrase, adpositional phrase, etc.) – such phrases usually play an

adverbial In English grammar, an adverbial (abbreviated ) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial clause or adverbial phrase) that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb. (The word ''adverbial'' itself is also used as a ...

role in a sentence. A less common type of adposition is the circumposition, which consists of two parts that appear on each side of the complement. Other terms sometimes used for particular types of adposition include ''ambiposition'', ''inposition'' and ''interposition''. Some linguists use the word ''preposition'' in place of ''adposition'' regardless of the applicable word order.An example is Huddleston & Pullum (2002) ("''CGEL''"), whose choice of terms is discussed on p. 602.

Terminology

The word ''preposition'' comes from la, prae- prefix (pre- prefix) ("before") and la, ponere ("to put"). This refers to the situation in Latin and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

(and in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

), where such words are placed before their complement (except sometimes in Ancient Greek), and are hence "pre-positioned". In some languages, including Sindhi,

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Turkish, Hungarian,

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

, and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, the same kinds of words typically come after their complement. To indicate this, they are called ''postpositions'' (using the prefix ''post-'', from Latin ''post'' meaning "behind, after"). There are also some cases where the function is performed by two parts coming before and after the complement; this is called a ''circumposition'' (from Latin ''circum-'' prefix "around"). In some languages, for example

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

, some adpositions can be used as both prepositions and postpositions. Prepositions, postpositions and circumpositions are collectively known as ''adpositions'' (using the Latin prefix ''ad-'', meaning "to"). However, some linguists prefer to use the well-known and longer established term ''preposition'' in place of ''adposition'', irrespective of position relative to the complement.

Grammatical properties

An adposition typically combines with exactly one

, most often a

(or, in a different analysis, a

determiner phrase In linguistics, a determiner phrase (DP) is a type of phrase headed by a determiner such as ''many''. Controversially, many approaches, take a phrase like ''not very many apples'' to be a DP, headed, in this case, by the determiner ''many''. This is ...

). In English, this is generally a noun (or something functioning as a noun, e.g., a

gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...

), together with its specifier and

modifiers In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...

such as

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...

s, etc. The complement is sometimes called the ''object'' of the adposition. The resulting

, formed by the adposition together with its complement, is called an

adpositional phrase An adpositional phrase, in linguistics, is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circ ...

or prepositional phrase (PP) (or for specificity, a postpositional or circumpositional phrase). An adposition establishes a

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...

relationship that links its complement to another word or phrase in the context. It also generally establishes a

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

relationship, which may be spatial (''in'', ''on'', ''under'', ...), temporal (''after'', ''during'', ...), or of some other type (''of'', ''for'', ''via'', ...). The

World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM i ...

treats a word as an adposition if it takes a noun phrase as a complement and indicates the grammatical or semantic relationship of that phrase to the verb in the containing clause. Some examples of the use of English prepositions are given below. In each case, the prepositional phrase appears in ''italics'', the preposition within it appears in ''bold'', and the preposition's

is underlined. As demonstrated in some of the examples, more than one prepositional phrase may act as an adjunct to the same word. * As an adjunct to a noun: ** the weather ''in March'' ** cheese ''from France'' ''with live bacteria'' * As a

predicative expression A predicative expression (or just predicative) is part of a clause predicate, and is an expression that typically follows a copula (or linking verb), e.g. ''be'', ''seem'', ''appear'', or that appears as a second complement of a certain type of v ...

(complement of a copula) ** The key is ''under the stone''. * As an adjunct to a verb: ** sleep ''throughout the winter'' ** danced ''atop the tables for hours'' ** dispense ''with the formalities'' (see Semantic functions, below) * As an adjunct to an adjective: ** happy ''for them'' ** sick ''until recently'' In the last of these examples the complement has the form of an adverb, which has been nominalised to serve as a noun phrase; see Different forms of complement, below. Prepositional phrases themselves are sometimes nominalized: * ''In the cellar'' was chosen as the best place to store the wine. An adposition may determine the

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...

of its complement. In English, the complements of prepositions take the

objective case In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case (abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative. A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role exc ...

where available (''from him'', not *''from he''). In

Koine Greek Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

, for example, certain prepositions always take their objects in a certain case (e.g., ἐν always takes its object in the dative), while other prepositions may take their object in one of two or more cases, depending on the meaning of the preposition (e.g., διά takes its object in the genitive or in the accusative, depending on the meaning). Some languages have cases that are used exclusively after prepositions (

prepositional case In grammar, the prepositional case (abbreviated ) and the postpositional case (abbreviated ) - generalised as ''adpositional cases'' - are grammatical cases that respectively mark the object of a preposition and a postposition. This term can be us ...

), or special forms of

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not co ...

s for use after prepositions (

prepositional pronoun A prepositional pronoun is a special form of a personal pronoun that is used as the object of a preposition. English does not have a distinct grammatical case that relates solely to prepositional pronouns. Certain genitive pronouns (e.g. a frien ...

). The functions of adpositions overlap with those of case markings (for example, the meaning of the English preposition ''of'' is expressed in many languages by a

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

ending), but adpositions are classed as

syntactic In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...

elements, while case markings are morphological. Adpositions themselves are usually non-inflecting ("invariant"): they do not have paradigms of form (such as tense, case, gender, etc.) the same way that verbs, adjectives, and nouns can. There are exceptions, though, such as prepositions that have fused with a pronominal object to form

inflected preposition In linguistics, an inflected preposition is a type of word that occurs in some languages, that corresponds to the combination of a preposition and a personal pronoun. For instance, the Welsh word ' () is an inflected form of the preposition ''i'' m ...

s. The following properties are characteristic of most adpositional systems: * Adpositions are among the most frequently occurring words in languages that have them. For example, one frequency ranking for English word forms begins as follows (prepositions in bold): ::''the, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you'', … * The most common adpositions are single, monomorphemic words. According to the ranking cited above, for example, the most common English prepositions are ''on'', ''in'', ''to'', ''by'', ''for'', ''with'', ''at'', ''of'', ''from'', ''as'', all of which are single-syllable words and cannot be broken down into smaller units of meaning. * Adpositions form a

closed class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...

of lexical items and cannot be productively derived from words of other categories.

Classification of prepositions

As noted above, adpositions are referred to by various terms, depending on their position relative to the complement. While the term ''preposition'' is sometimes used to denote any adposition, in its stricter meaning it refers only to one which precedes its complement. Examples of this, from English, have been given above; similar examples can be found in many European and other languages, for example: *

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

: ''mit einer Frau'' ("with a woman") * French: ''sur la table'' ("on the table") *

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

: ''na stole'' ("on the table") *

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: ''у меня'' ("in the possession of me" have * Khmer: លើក្តារខៀន ''ləː kdaːkʰiən("on (the) blackboard") *

Tigrinya (; also spelled Tigrigna) is an Ethio-Semitic language commonly spoken Eritrea and in northern Ethiopia's Tigray Region by the Tigrinya and Tigrayan peoples. It is also spoken by the global diaspora of these regions. History and literatur ...

: አብ ልዕሊ ጣውላ ''abː lɨʕli tʼawla("at/on top table"); አብ ትሕቲ ጣውላ ''abː tɨħti tʼawla("at/on under table") In certain grammatical constructions, the complement of a preposition may be absent or may be moved from its position directly following the preposition. This may be referred to as

preposition stranding Historically, grammarians have described preposition stranding or p-stranding as the syntactic construction in which a so-called ''stranded'', ''hanging'' or ''dangling'' preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding o ...

(see also

below Below may refer to: *Earth *Ground (disambiguation) *Soil *Floor *Bottom (disambiguation) Bottom may refer to: Anatomy and sex * Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...

), as in "Whom did you go with?" and "There's only one thing worse than being talked about." There are also some (mainly colloquial) expressions in which a preposition's complement may be omitted, such as "I'm going to the park. Do you want to come with e", and the French ''Il fait trop froid, je ne suis pas habillée pour'' ("It's too cold, I'm not dressed for

he situation He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

") The bolded words in these examples are generally still considered prepositions because when they form a phrase with a complement (in more ordinary constructions) they must appear first. A ''postposition'' follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase. Examples include: *

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ''mecum'' ("with me", literally "me with") * Turkish: ''benimle'' or ''benim ile'' ("with me", literally "my with") *

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: 桌子上 ''zhuōzi shàng'' (lit. "table on"); this is a nominal form which usually requires an additional preposition to form an adverbial phrase (see Chinese locative phrases) *English: ''ten kilometers away'', ''ten months ago'' (both could be considered adverbs) Some adpositions can appear either before or after their complement: * English: ''the evidence notwithstanding'' OR ''notwithstanding the evidence'' * German: ''meiner Meinung nach'' OR ''nach meiner Meinung'' ("in my opinion") * German: ''die Straße entlang'' OR ''entlang der Straße'' ("along the road"; here a different case is used when ''entlang'' precedes the noun) An adposition like the above, which can be either a preposition or a postposition, can be called an ambiposition. However, ''ambiposition'' may also be used to refer to a circumposition (see below), or to a word that appears to function as a preposition and postposition simultaneously, as in the

Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...

construction (noun-1) ''ā'' (noun-2), meaning "from (noun-1) to (noun-2)". Whether a language has primarily prepositions or postpositions is seen as an aspect of its typological classification, and tends to correlate with other properties related to head directionality. Since an adposition is regarded as the

head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may ...

of its phrase, prepositional phrases are head-initial (or right- branching), while postpositional phrases are head-final (or left-branching). There is a tendency for languages that feature postpositions also to have other head-final features, such as verbs that follow their objects; and for languages that feature prepositions to have other head-initial features, such as verbs that precede their objects. This is only a tendency, however; an example of a language that behaves differently is

, which employs mostly prepositions, even though it typically places verbs after their objects. A ''circumposition'' consists of two or more parts, positioned on both sides of the complement. Circumpositions are very common in

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...

and

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

. The following are examples from

Northern Kurdish Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Sy ...

(Kurmanji): * ''bi ... re'' ("with") * ''di ... de'' ("in", for things, not places) * ''di ... re'' ("via, through") * ''ji ... re'' ("for") * ''ji ... ve'' ("since") Various constructions in other languages might also be analyzed as circumpositional, for example: * English: ''from now on'' *

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

: ''naar het einde toe'' ("towards the end", lit. "to the end to") *

: 从冰箱里 ''cóng bīngxiāng lǐ'' ("from the inside of the refrigerator", lit. "from refrigerator inside") * French: ''à un détail près'' ("except for one detail", lit. "at one detail near") *

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: ''för tre timmar sedan'' ("three hours ago", lit. "for three hours since") *

: ''aus dem Zimmer heraus'' ("out from the room", lit. "from the room out") *

: ''ካብ ሕጂ ንደሓር ("from now on", lit. "from now to later") Most such phrases, however, can be analyzed as having a different hierarchical structure (such as a prepositional phrase modifying a following adverb). The Chinese example could be analyzed as a prepositional phrase headed by ''cóng'' ("from"), taking the locative noun phrase ''bīngxīang lǐ'' ("refrigerator inside") as its complement. An inposition is a rare type of adposition that appears between parts of a complex complement. For example, in the native Californian

Timbisha language Timbisha (''Tümpisa'') or Panamint (also called Koso) is the language of the Native American people who have inhabited the region in and around Death Valley, California, and the southern Owens Valley since late prehistoric times. There are a fe ...

, the phrase "from a mean cold" can be translated using the word order "cold from mean"—the inposition follows the noun but precedes any following

modifier Modifier may refer to: * Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning ** Compound modifier, two or more words that modify a noun ** Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an am ...

s that form part of the same

. The Latin word ''cum'' is also commonly used as an inposition, as in the phrase ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'', meaning "with highest praise", lit. "highest with praise". The term interposition has been used for adpositions in structures such as ''word for word'', French ''coup sur coup'' ("one after another, repeatedly"), and Russian друг с другом ("one with the other"). This is not a case of an adposition appearing inside its complement, as the two nouns do not form a single phrase (there is no phrase *''word word'', for example); such uses have more of a coordinating character.

Stranding

Preposition stranding is a

construct in which a preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its complement. For example, in the English sentence "What did you sit on?" the preposition ''on'' has ''what'' as its complement, but ''what'' is moved to the start of the sentence, because it is an

interrogative word An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most o ...

. This sentence is much more common and natural than the equivalent sentence without stranding: "On what did you sit?" Preposition stranding is commonly found in

, as well as

North Germanic languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...

such as

. Its existence in

is debated. Preposition stranding is also found in some

Niger–Congo languages Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic-Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), and possibly several smaller groups of ...

such as Vata and Gbadi, and in some North American varieties of French. Some prescriptive English grammars teach that prepositions cannot end a sentence, although there is no rule prohibiting that use. Similar rules arose during the rise of classicism, when they were applied to English in imitation of classical languages such as Latin.

Otto Jespersen Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. Steven Mithen described him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth ce ...

, in his ''Essentials of English Grammar'' (first published 1933), commented on this definition-derived rule: "...nor need a preposition (Latin: ''praepositio'') stand before the word it governs (go the fools ''among'' (Sh kespeare; What are you laughing ''at''?). You might just as well believe that all blackguards are black or that turkeys come from Turkey; many names have either been chosen unfortunately at first or have changed their meanings in course of time."

Simple ''versus'' complex

Simple adpositions consist of a single word (''on'', ''in'', ''for'', ''towards'', etc.). Complex adpositions consist of a group of words that act as one unit. Examples of complex prepositions in English include ''in spite of'', ''with respect to'', ''except for'', ''by dint of'', and ''next to''. The distinction between simple and complex adpositions is not clear-cut. Many complex adpositions are derived from simple forms (e.g., ''with + in'' → ''within'', ''by + side'' → ''beside'') through

grammaticalisation In historical linguistics, grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a process of language change by which words representing objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (such as affixes or p ...

. This change takes time, and during the transitional stages, the adposition acts in some ways like a single word, and in other ways like a multi-word unit. For example, current German orthographic conventions recognize the indeterminate status of certain prepositions, allowing two spellings: ''anstelle''/''an Stelle'' ("instead of"), ''aufgrund''/''auf Grund'' ("because of"), ''mithilfe''/''mit Hilfe'' ("by means of"), ''zugunsten''/''zu Gunsten'' ("in favor of"), ''zuungunsten''/''zu Ungunsten'' ("to the disadvantage of"), ''zulasten/zu Lasten'' ("at the expense of"). The distinction between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is not a black and white issue: complex adpositions (in English, "prepositional idioms") can be more fossilized or less fossilized. In English, this applies to a number of structures of the form "preposition + (article) + noun + preposition", such as ''in front of'', ''for the sake of''. The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is "frozen" enough to be considered a complex preposition in English: * It contains a word that cannot be used in any other context: ''by dint of'', ''in lieu of''. * The first preposition cannot be replaced: ''with a view to'' but not *''for/without a view to''. * It is impossible to insert an article, or to use a different article: ''on account of'' but not *''on an/the account of''; ''for the sake of'' but not *''for a sake of''. * The range of possible adjectives is very limited: ''in great favor of'', but not *''in helpful favor of''. * The

grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of ...

of the noun cannot be changed: ''by virtue of'' but not *''by virtues of''. * It is impossible to use a

possessive determiner Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic Lallu) are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they do ...

: ''in spite of him'', not *''in his spite''.

Marginal prepositions

Marginal prepositions are prepositions that have affinities with other word classes, most notably verbs. Marginal prepositions behave like prepositions but derive from other parts of speech. Some marginal prepositions in English include ''barring'', ''concerning'', ''considering'', ''excluding'', ''failing'', ''following'', ''including'', ''notwithstanding'', ''regarding'', and ''respecting''.

Proper ''versus'' improper

In descriptions of some languages, prepositions are divided into proper (or ''essential'') and improper (or ''accidental''). A preposition is called improper if it is some other part of speech being used in the same way as a preposition. Examples of simple and complex prepositions that have been so classified include ''prima di'' ("before") and ''davanti (a)'' ("in front of") in

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, and ''ergo'' ("on account of") and ''causa'' ("for the sake of") in

. In reference to

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

, however, an improper preposition is one that cannot also serve as a

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the Word stem, stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy'' ...

to a

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

Different forms of complement

As noted above, adpositions typically have

s as complements. This can include nominal clauses and certain types of

non-finite verb A nonfinite verb is a derivative form of a verb unlike finite verbs. Accordingly, nonfinite verb forms are inflected for neither number nor person, and they cannot perform action as the root of an independent clause. In English, nonfinite verbs inc ...

phrase: *We can't agree ''on whether to have children or not'' (complement is a nominal clause) *Let's think ''about solving this problem'' (complement is a

phrase) *''pour encourager les autres'' (French: "to encourage the others", complement is an

infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...

phrase) The word ''to'' when it precedes the infinitive in English is not a preposition, but rather is a grammatical

particle In the Outline of physical science, physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small wikt:local, localized physical body, object which can be described by several physical property, physical or chemical property, chemical ...

outside of any main

word class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...

. In other cases, the complement may have the form of an adjective or

adjective phrase An adjective phrase (or adjectival phrase) is a phrase whose head is an adjective. Almost any grammar or syntax textbook or dictionary of linguistics terminology defines the adjective phrase in a similar way, e.g. Kesner Bland (1996:499), Crystal (1 ...

, or an adverbial. This may be regarded as a complement representing a different

syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasal c ...

, or simply as an atypical form of noun phrase (see

nominalization In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a word that is not a noun (e.g., a verb, an adjective or an adverb) as a noun, or as the head of a noun phrase. This change in functional category can occur through morphological tr ...

). *The scene went ''from blindingly bright to pitch black'' (complements are adjective phrases) *I worked there ''until recently'' (complement is an adverb) *Come out ''from under the bed'' (complement is an adverbial) In the last example, the complement of the preposition ''from'' is in fact another prepositional phrase. The resulting sequence of two prepositions (''from under'') may be regarded as a

complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...

preposition; in some languages, such a sequence may be represented by a single word, as Russian из-под ''iz-pod'' ("from under"). Some adpositions appear to combine with two complements: * ''With Sammy president'', we can all come out of hiding again. * ''For Sammy to become president'', they'd have to seriously modify the Constitution. It is more commonly assumed, however, that ''Sammy'' and the following predicate forms a "

small clause In linguistics, a small clause consists of a subject and its predicate, but lacks an overt expression of tense. Small clauses have the semantic subject-predicate characteristics of a clause, and have some, but not all, the properties of a constitue ...

", which then becomes the single complement of the preposition. (In the first example, a word such as ''as'' may be considered to have been

elided In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...

, which, if present, would clarify the grammatical relationship.)

Semantic functions

Adpositions can be used to express a wide range of

relations between their complement and the rest of the context. The relations expressed may be spatial (denoting location or direction), temporal (denoting position in time), or relations expressing comparison, content, agent, instrument, means, manner, cause, purpose, reference, etc. Most common adpositions are highly

polysemous Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a symbol, a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single ...

(they have various different meanings). In many cases a primary, spatial meaning becomes extended to non-spatial uses by

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...

ical or other processes. Because of the variety of meanings, a single adposition often has many possible equivalents in another language, depending on the exact context in which it is used; this can cause significant difficulties in foreign

language learning Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to ...

. Usage can also vary between dialects of the same language (for example,

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...

has ''on the weekend'', where

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

uses ''at the weekend''). In some contexts (as in the case of some

phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...

s) the choice of adposition may be determined by another element in the construction or be fixed by the construction as a whole. Here the adposition may have little independent semantic content of its own, and there may be no clear reason why the particular adposition is used rather than another. Examples of such expressions are: * English: ''dispense with'', ''listen to'', ''insist on'', ''proud of'', ''good at'' *

: ''otvechat' na vopros'' ("answer the question", literally "answer on the question"), ''obvinenie v obmane'' ("accusation of iterally: infraud") *

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

: ''soñar con ganar el título'' ("dream about

it. with It or IT may refer to: * It (pronoun), in English * Information technology Arts and media Film and television * ''It'' (1927 film), a film starring Clara Bow * '' It! The Terror from Beyond Space'', a 1958 science fiction film * ''It!'' (1967 ...

winning the title"), ''consistir en dos grupos'' ("consist of

it. in It or IT may refer to: * It (pronoun), in English * Information technology Arts and media Film and television * It (1927 film), ''It'' (1927 film), a film starring Clara Bow * ''It! The Terror from Beyond Space'', a 1958 science fiction film * I ...

two groups") Prepositions sometimes mark roles that may be considered largely grammatical: *

possession Possession may refer to: Law * Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance * Drug possession, a crime * Ownership * ...

(in a broad sense) – ''the pen of my aunt'' (sometimes marked by

genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

possessive A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...

forms) * the agent in

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of on ...

constructions – ''killed by a lone gunman'' * the recipient of a transfer – ''give it to him'' (sometimes marked by a

dative In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...

or an

indirect object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

) Spatial meanings of adpositions may be either ''directional'' or ''static''. A directional meaning usually involves motion in a particular direction ("Kay went to the store"), the direction in which something leads or points ("A path into the woods"), or the extent of something ("The fog stretched from London to Paris"). A static meaning indicates only a location ("at the store", "behind the chair", "on the moon"). Some prepositions can have both uses: "he sat in the water" (static); "he jumped in the water" (probably directional). In some languages, the case of the complement varies depending on the meaning, as with several prepositions in

, such as ''in'': * ''in seinem Zimmer'' ("in his room", static meaning, takes the

) * ''in sein Zimmer'' ("into his room", directional meaning, takes the

accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...

) In English and many other languages, prepositional phrases with static meaning are commonly used as

s after a copula ("Bob is at the store"); this may happen with some directional prepositions as well ("Bob is from Australia"), but this is less common. Directional prepositional phrases combine mostly with verbs that indicate movement ("Jay is going into her bedroom", but not *"Jay is lying down into her bedroom"). Directional meanings can be further divided into ''

telic Telic may refer to: *Grammatically, indicating telicity *A central argument of Teleology says that the world has clearly been constructed in a purposeful telic rather than a chaotic manner, and must therefore have been made by a rational being, i.e ...

'' and ''atelic''. Telic prepositional phrases imply movement all the way to the endpoint ("she ran to the fence"), while atelic ones do not ("she ran towards the fence"). Static meanings can be divided into ''projective'' and ''non-projective'', where projective meanings are those whose understanding requires knowledge of the perspective or point of view. For example, the meaning of "behind the rock" is likely to depend on the position of the speaker (projective), whereas the meaning of "on the desk" is not (non-projective). Sometimes the interpretation is ambiguous, as in "behind the house", which may mean either at the natural back of the house, or on the opposite side of the house from the speaker.

Overlaps with other categories

Adverbs and particles

There are often similarities in form between adpositions and

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...

s. Some adverbs are derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement (such as ''downstairs'', from ''down (the) stairs'', and ''underground'', from ''under (the) ground''). Some words can function both as adverbs and as prepositions, such as ''inside'', ''aboard'', ''underneath'' (for instance, one can say "go inside", with adverbial use, or "go inside the house", with prepositional use). Such cases are analogous to verbs that can be used either transitively or intransitively, and the adverbial forms might therefore be analyzed as "intransitive prepositions". This analysisSee for example ''CGEL'', pp. 612–16. could also be extended to other adverbs, such as ''here'' (this place), ''there'' (that place), ''afterwards'', etc., even though these never take complements. Many English

s contain

particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from su ...

that are used adverbially, even though they mostly have the form of a preposition (such words may be called

prepositional adverb A prepositional adverb is a word – mainly a particle – which is very similar in its form to a preposition but functions as an adverb. Prepositional adverbs occur, for example, in English, German and Dutch. Unlike real prepositions, they occur ...

s). Examples are ''on'' in ''carry on'', ''get on'', etc., ''over'' in ''take over'', ''fall over'', and so on. The equivalents in

and

are separable prefixes, which also often have the same form as prepositions: for example, Dutch ''aanbieden'' and German ''anbieten'' (both meaning "to offer") contain the separable prefix ''aan/an'', which is also a preposition meaning "on" or "to".

Conjunctions

Some words can be used both as adpositions and as

subordinating conjunction In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated or ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses that are called the conjuncts of the conjunctions. That definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech and so what constitutes a ...

s: * (preposition) ''before/after/since the end of the summer'' * (conjunction) ''before/after/since the summer ended'' * (preposition) ''It looks like another rainy day'' * (conjunction) ''It looks like it's going to rain again today'' It would be possible to analyze such conjunctions (or even other subordinating conjunctions) as prepositions that take an entire

clause In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb with ...

as a complement.

Verbs

In some languages, including a number of

Chinese varieties Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...

, many of the words that serve as prepositions can also be used as

s. For instance, in

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern Standar ...

, 到 ''dào'' can be used in either a prepositional or a verbal sense: * 我到北京去 ''wǒ dào Běijīng qù'' ("I go to Beijing"; ''qù'', meaning "to go", is the main verb, ''dào'' is prepositional meaning "to") * 我到了 ''wǒ dào le'' ("I have arrived"; ''dào'' is the main verb, meaning "to arrive") Because of this overlap, and the fact that a sequence of prepositional phrase and verb phrase often resembles a

serial verb construction The serial verb construction, also known as (verb) serialization or verb stacking, is a syntactic phenomenon in which two or more verbs or verb phrases are strung together in a single clause.Tallerman, M. (1998). ''Understanding Syntax''. London: A ...

, Chinese prepositions (and those of other languages with similar grammatical structures) are often referred to as

coverb A coverb is a word or prefix that resembles a verb or co-operates with a verb. In languages that have the serial verb construction, coverbs are a type of word that shares features of verbs and prepositions. A coverb takes an object or complemen ...

s. As noted in previous sections, Chinese can also be said to have postpositions, although these can be analyzed as nominal (

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

) elements. For more information, see the article on

Chinese grammar The grammar of Standard Chinese or Mandarin shares many features with other varieties of Chinese. The language almost entirely lacks inflection; words typically have only one grammatical form. Categories such as number (singular or plural) and ...

, particularly the sections on coverbs and locative phrases.

Case affixes

Some

markings have a similar function to adpositions; a case affix in one language may be equivalent in meaning to a preposition or postposition in another. For example, in English the agent of a

construction is marked by the preposition ''by'', while in

it is marked by use of the

instrumental case In grammar, the instrumental case (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the ''instrument'' or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or an ...

. Sometimes such equivalences exist within a single language; for example, the

case in

is often interchangeable with a phrase using the preposition ''von'' (just as in English, the preposition ''of'' is often interchangeable with the

possessive suffix In linguistics, a possessive affix (from la, affixum possessivum) is an affix (usually suffix or prefix) attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive affixes are found in many languages o ...

'' 's''). Adpositions combine syntactically with their complement, whereas case markings combine with a noun morphologically. In some instances it may not be clear which applies; the following are some possible means of making such a distinction: * Two adpositions can usually be joined with a

coordinating conjunction In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated or ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses that are called the conjuncts of the conjunctions. That definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech and so what constitutes a ...

and share a single complement (''of and for the people''), whereas this is generally not possible with case affixes; * One adposition can usually combine with two coordinated complements (''of the city and the world''), whereas a case affix would need to be repeated with each noun (

''urbis et orbis'', not *urb- et orbis''); * Case markings combine primarily with nouns, whereas adpositions can combine with (nominalized) phrases of different categories; * A case marking usually appears directly on the noun, but an adposition can be separated from the noun by other words; * Within the noun phrase, determiners and adjectives may agree with the noun in case (case spreading), but an adposition only appears once; * A language can have hundreds of adpositions (including complex adpositions), but no language has that many distinct morphological cases. Even so, a clear distinction cannot always be made. For example, the post-nominal elements in

and

are sometimes called case particles and sometimes postpositions. Sometimes they are analysed as two different groups because they have different characteristics (e.g., the ability to combine with focus particles), but in such analysis, it is unclear which words should fall into which group. Turkish,

and Hungarian have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, but there is evidence to help distinguish the two: * Turkish: (case) ''sinemaya'' (cinema-''dative'', "to the cinema") vs. (postposition) ''sinema için'' ("for the cinema") * Finnish: (case) ''talossa'' (house-''

inessive In grammar, the inessive case (abbreviated ; from la, inesse "to be in or at") is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is in Finnish, in Estonian, () in Moksha, in Basque, in ...

'', "in the house") vs. (postposition) "talon edessä (house-''genitive'' in front, "in front of the house") * Hungarian: (case) ''tetőn'' (roof-''

superessive In grammar, the superessive case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case indicating location on top of, or on the surface of something. Its name comes from Latin ''supersum, superesse'': to be over and above. While most languages communicate this conce ...

'', "on the roof") vs. (postposition) "tető alatt ("under the roof") In these examples, the case markings form a word with their hosts (as shown by

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...

, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words. As is seen in the last example, adpositions are often used in conjunction with case affixes – in languages that have case, a given adposition usually takes a complement in a particular case, and sometimes (as has been seen above) the choice of case helps specify the meaning of the adposition.

References

Bibliography

* Haspelmath, Martin. (2003) "Adpositions". ''International Encyclopedia of Linguistics.'' 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. . * Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. (2002) ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . * * Koopman, Hilda. (2000) "Prepositions, postpositions, circumpositions, and particles". In ''The Syntax of Specifiers and Heads'', pp. 204–260. London: Routledge. * Libert, Alan R. (2006) ''Ambipositions''. LINCOM studies in language typology (No. 13). LINCOM. . * Maling, Joan. (1983) "Transitive adjectives: A case of categorial reanalysis". In F. Heny and B. Richards (eds), ''Linguistic Categories: Auxiliaries and Related Puzzles,'' Vol. 1, pp. 253–289. Dordrecht: Reidel. * Melis, Ludo. (2003) ''La préposition en français''. Gap: Ophrys. * Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2005)
Phrasal Prepositions in a Civil Tone
" ''Language Log''. Accessed 9 September 2007. * Quirk, Randolph, and Joan Mulholland. (1964) "Complex Prepositions and Related Sequences". ''English Studies'', suppl. to vol. 45, pp. 64–73. * Rauh, Gisa. (1991) ''Approaches to Prepositions''. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. * Reindl, Donald F. (2001) "Areal Effects on the Preservation and Genesis of Slavic Postpositions". In Lj. Šarić and D. F. Reindl ''On Prepositions'' (= Studia Slavica Oldenburgensia 8), pp. 85–100. Oldenburg: Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universitat Oldenburg.

External links

* [https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/prepositions/index.html Some prepositions] at Purdue Online Writing Lab {{lexical categories Syntax Generative syntax Parts of speech Word order Grammatical marker type