Adposition
Encyclopedia
Prepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations (such as the English words in, under, toward) or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles (such as the English words of, for). In that the primary function is relational, a preposition typically combines with another constituent
(called its complement) to form a prepositional phrase
, relating the complement to the context in which the phrase occurs.
The word preposition comes from Latin, a language in which such a word is usually placed before its complement. (Thus it is pre-positioned.) English is another such language. In many languages (e.g. Urdu, Turkish
, Hindi and Japanese
), the words with this grammatical function come after, not before, the complement. Such words are then commonly called postpositions. Similarly, circumpositions consist of two parts that appear on both sides of the complement. The technical term used to refer collectively to prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions is adposition. Some linguists use the word "preposition" instead of "adposition" for all three cases.
The following examples illustrate some uses of English prepositional phrases:
Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case
markings, but adpositions are syntactic elements, while case markings are morphological
elements.
construct in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately next to its object. For example: Who did you give it to? where to refers to who, which is placed at the beginning of the sentence because it is an interrogative word. The above sentence is much more common and natural than the equivalent sentence without stranding: To who(m) did you give it? Preposition stranding is most commonly found in English
, as well as North Germanic languages
such as Swedish
. The existence of preposition stranding in German and Dutch is debated. Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (languages of the Niger–Congo
) and the dialects of some North American French speakers.
is said to have written, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put," illustrating the awkwardness that would result from a rule against the use of terminal prepositions. However, the attribution of this quote to Churchill is almost certainly apocryphal; furthermore, it is also wrong because up is not a preposition in that sentence at all. A correct rearrangement would be “This is the sort of English with which I will not put up” (preposition in bold), which still sounds awkward. Another rearrangement would be "This is the sort of English which I will not put up with"; here again, the "with" and "up" which might be construed as prepositions are not prepositions but are in fact part of the verb "put up with".
The boundary between simple and complex adpositions is not clear-cut and for the most part arbitrary. Many simple adpositions are derived from complex forms (e.g. with + in → within, by + side → beside) through grammaticalization. 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 the following adpositions, allowing two spellings:
The boundary between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is also a fuzzy one. For English, this involves structures of the form "preposition + (article) + noun + preposition". Many sequences in English, such as in front of, that are traditionally regarded as prepositional phrases are not so regarded by linguists. The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is "frozen" enough to be considered a complex preposition in English:
Complex prepositions develop through the grammaticalization of commonly used free combinations. This is an ongoing process that introduces new prepositions into English.
The two terms are more commonly used than the general adposition. Whether a language has primarily prepositions or postpositions is seen as an important aspect of its typological
classification, correlated with many other properties of the language.
It is usually straightforward to establish whether an adposition precedes or follows its complement. In some cases, the complement may not appear in a typical position. For example, in preposition stranding
constructions, the complement appears before the preposition:
In other cases, the complement of the adposition is absent:
The adpositions in the examples are generally still considered prepositions because when they form a phrase with the complement (in more ordinary constructions), they must appear first.
Some adpositions can appear on either side of their complement; these can be called ambipositions (Reindl 2001, Libert 2006):
An ambiposition entlang (along). It can be put before or after the noun related to it (but with different noun cases attached to it).
Another adposition surrounds its complement, called a circumposition:
"Circumposition" can be a useful descriptive term, though most circumpositional phrases can be broken down into a more hierarchical structure, or given a different analysis altogether. For example, the Mandarin example above could be analyzed as a prepositional phrase headed by cóng ("from"), taking the postpositional phrase bīngxīang lǐ ("refrigerator inside") as its complement. Alternatively, the cóng may be analyzed as not a preposition at all (see the section below regarding coverbs).
Melis (2003) proposes the descriptive term interposition for adpositions in the structures such as the following:
An interposition is not an adposition which appears inside its complement as the two nouns do not form a single phrase (there is no *word word or *page page). Examples of actually interposed adpositions can be found in Latin (e.g. summa cum laude, lit. "highest with praise"). But they are always related to a more basic prepositional structure.
Also like verbs, adpositions can appear without a complement; see Adverbs below.
Some adpositions could be described as combining with two complements:
It is more commonly assumed, however, that Sammy and the following predicate first forms a “small clause”, which then becomes the single complement of the preposition. (In the first example above, a word (such as as) may be considered to be elided
, which, if present, would clarify the grammatical relationship.)
Most common adpositions are highly polysemous
, and much research is devoted to the description and explanation of the various interconnected meanings of particular adpositions. In many cases a primary, spatial meaning can be identified, which is then extended to non-spatial uses by metaphorical or other processes.
In some contexts, adpositions appear in contexts where their semantic contribution is minimal, perhaps altogether absent. Such adpositions are sometimes referred to as functional or case-marking adpositions, and they are lexically selected by another element in the construction, or fixed by the construction as a whole.
It is usually possible to find some semantic motivation for the choice of a given adposition, but it is generally impossible to explain why other semantically motivated adpositions are excluded in the same context. The selection of the correct adposition in these cases is a matter of syntactic well-formedness.
A static adposition normally does not involve movement. Examples of these include at, in, on, beside, behind, under and above.
Directional adpositions differ from static ones in that they normally can't combine with a copula to yield a predicate
, though there are some exceptions to this, as in Bob is from Australia, which may perhaps be thought of as special uses.
Directional spatial adpositions can only combine with verbs that involve motion; static prepositions can combine with other verbs as well.
When a static adposition combines with a motion verb, it sometimes takes on a directional meaning. The following sentence can either mean that Bob jumped around in the water, or else that he jumped so that he ended up in the water.
In some languages, directional adpositions govern a different case
on their complement
than static ones. These are known as casally modulated prepositions. For example, in German, directional adpositions govern accusative while static ones govern dative. Adpositions that are ambiguous between directional and static interpretations govern accusative when they are interpreted as directional, and dative when they are interpreted as static.
Directional adpositions can be further divided into telic
ones and atelic
ones. To, into and across are telic: they involve movement all the way to the endpoint denoted by their complement
. Atelic ones include towards and along. When telic adpositions combine with a motion verb, the result is a telic
verb phrase
. Atelic adpositions give rise to atelic verb phrases when so combined.
Static adpositions can be further subdivided into projective and non-projective ones. A non-projective static adposition is one whose meaning can be determined by inspecting the meaning of its complement and the meaning of the preposition itself. A projective static adposition requires, in addition, a perspective or point of view. If I say that Bob is behind the rock, you need to know where I am to know on which side of the rock Bob is supposed to be. If I say that your pen is to the left of my book, you also need to know what my point of view is. No such point of view is required in the interpretation of sentences like your pen is on the desk. Projective static prepositions can sometimes take the complement itself as "point of view," if this provides us with certain information. For example, a house normally has a front and a back, so a sentence like the following is actually ambiguous between two readings: one has it that Bob is at the back of the house; the other has it that Bob is on the other side of the house, with respect to the speaker's point of view.
A similar effect can be observed with left of, given that objects that have fronts and backs can also be ascribed lefts and rights. The sentence, My keys are to the left of the phone, can either mean that they are on the speaker's left of the phone, or on the phone's left of the phone.
Adpositional languages typically single out a particular adposition for the following special functions:
s. Some adverbs are clearly derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement, and some prepositions have adverb-like uses with no complement:
It is possible to treat all of these adverbs as intransitive prepositions, as opposed to transitive prepositions, which select a complement (just like transitive vs intransitive verbs). This analysis could also be extended to other adverbs, even those that cannot be used as "ordinary" prepositions with a nominal complement:
A more conservative approach is to say simply that adverbs and adpositional phrases share many common functions.
" that also looks like an intransitive preposition. The same can be said for the separable verb prefixes found in Dutch and German.
Although these elements have the same lexical form as prepositions, in many cases they do not have relational semantics, and there is no "missing" complement whose identity can be recovered from the context.
s):
All of these words can be treated as prepositions if we extend the definition to allow clausal complements.
This treatment could be extended further to conjunctions that are never used as ordinary prepositions:
s, words that are lexically verbs, but are generally used to convey the meaning of adpositions.
For instance, whether prepositions exist in Chinese
is sometimes considered an open question. Coverbs are often referred to as prepositions because they appear before the noun phrase they modify. However, unlike prepositions, coverbs can sometimes stand alone as main verbs. For instance, in Standard Chinese
, dào can be used in a prepositional or a verb sense:
markings are similar. Adpositions in one language can correspond precisely to case markings in another language. For example, the agentive noun phrase in the passive construction in English is introduced by the preposition by, while in Russian it is marked by the instrumental case
. Sometimes both prepositions and cases can be observed within a single language. For example, the genitive case in German is in many instances interchangeable with a phrase using the preposition von.
Despite this functional similarity, adpositions and case markings are distinct grammatical categories:
It can be difficult to clearly distinguish case markings from adpositions. For example, the post-nominal elements in Japanese
and Korean
are sometimes called case particles and sometimes postpositions. Sometimes they are analysed as two different groups because they have different characteristics (e.g. ability to combine with focus particles), but in such analysis, it is unclear which words should fall into which group.
Turkish
and Finnish
have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, and here there is evidence to help distinguish the two:
In these examples, the case markings form a word with their hosts (as shown by vowel harmony
, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words.
Some languages, like Sanskrit
, use postpositions to emphasize the meaning of the grammatical cases, and eliminate possible ambiguities
in the meaning of the phrase. For example:
. In this example, "" is in the instrumental case
, but, as its meaning can be ambiguous,the postposition saha is being used to emphasize the meaning of company.
In Indo-European languages
, each case often contains several different endings, some of which may be derived from different roots. An ending is chosen depending on gender
, number
, whether the word is a noun
or a modifier
, and other factors.
have "to wait in line", but some have "to wait on line". Because of this, prepositions are often cited as one of the most difficult aspects of a language to learn, for both non-native speakers and native speakers. Where an adposition is required in one language, it may not be in another. In translations, adpositions must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and one may be either supplied or omitted. For instance:
Constituent (linguistics)
In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. The analysis of constituent structure is associated mainly with phrase structure grammars, although dependency grammars also allow sentence structure to be broken down...
(called its complement) to form a prepositional phrase
Adpositional phrase
An adpositional phrase is a linguistics term defining a syntactic category that includes prepositional phrases and postpositional phrases. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition in the head position and usually a complement such as a noun phrase...
, relating the complement to the context in which the phrase occurs.
The word preposition comes from Latin, a language in which such a word is usually placed before its complement. (Thus it is pre-positioned.) English is another such language. In many languages (e.g. Urdu, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
, Hindi and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
), the words with this grammatical function come after, not before, the complement. Such words are then commonly called postpositions. Similarly, circumpositions consist of two parts that appear on both sides of the complement. The technical term used to refer collectively to prepositions, postpositions, and circumpositions is adposition. Some linguists use the word "preposition" instead of "adposition" for all three cases.
The following examples illustrate some uses of English prepositional phrases:
- as a modifier to a verb
- sleep throughout the winter
- danced atop the tables for hours
- as a modifier to a noun
- the weather in May
- cheese from France with live bacteria
- as a modifier of an adjective
- happy for them
- sick until recently
- as the complement of a verb
- insist on staying home
- dispose of unwanted items
- as the complement of a noun
- a thirst for revenge
- an amendment to the constitution
- as the complement of an adjective or adverb
- attentive to their needs
- separately from its neighbors
- as the complement of another preposition
- until after supper
- from beneath the bed
Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
markings, but adpositions are syntactic elements, while case markings are morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
elements.
Definitional issues
Adpositions form a heterogeneous class, with boundaries that tend to overlap with other categories (like verbs, nouns, and adjectives). It is thus impossible to provide an absolute definition that picks out all and only the adpositions in every language. The following features, however, are often required of adpositions.- An adposition prototypically combines syntactically with exactly one complementComplement (linguistics)In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
phrase, most often a noun phraseNoun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
(or, in a different analysis, a determiner phraseDeterminer phraseIn linguistics, a determiner phrase is a syntactic category, a phrase headed by a determiner. The noun phrase is strictly speaking a determiner phrase, and NP designates a constituent of the noun phrase, taken to be the complement of the determiner. This is opposed to the traditional view that...
). (In some analyses, an adposition need have no complement. See below.) In English, this is generally a noun (or something functioning as a noun, e.g., a gerundGerundIn linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....
), called the object of the preposition, together with its attendant modifiers. - An adposition establishes the grammatical relationship that links its complement to another word or phrase in the context. In English, it may also establish a semantic relationship, which may be spatial (in, on, under, ...), temporal (after, during, ...), or logical (via, ...) in nature. The World Atlas of Language StructuresWorld Atlas of Language StructuresThe World Atlas of Language Structures is a database of structural properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-ROM in 2005, and was released as the second edition on the Internet in April 2008...
treats a word as an adposition if it takes a noun phrase as complement and indicates the grammatical or semantic relationship of that phrase to the verb in the containing clause. - An adposition determines certain grammatical properties of its complement (e.g. its caseGrammatical caseIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
). In English, the objects of prepositions are always in the objective case (where such case is available: i.e. pronouns). In Koine Greek, certain prepositions always take their objects in a certain case (e.g., ἐν always takes its object in the dative), and other prepositions may take their object in one of several 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). - Adpositions are non-inflectingUninflected wordIn the context of linguistic morphology, an uninflected word is a word that has no morphological markers such as affixes, ablaut, consonant gradation, etc., indicating declension or conjugation...
(or "invariant"); i.e., they do not have paradigms of forms (for different tenses, cases, genders, etc.) in the same way as verbs, adjectives, and nouns in the same language. There are exceptions, though, for example in Celtic languages (see Inflected prepositionInflected prepositionIn some languages, an inflected preposition, or conjugated preposition, is a word formed from the contraction of a preposition with a personal pronoun. For instance, in Scottish Gaelic, to say "before him," one can not say *, but , which historically developed from a fusion of pronoun and...
).
Properties
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 (adpositions in bold):
-
- the, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you, …
- The most common adpositions are single, monomorphemicMorphemeIn linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
words. According to the ranking cited above, for example, the most common English prepositions are the following:
- The most common adpositions are single, monomorphemic
- on, in, to, by, for, with, at, of, from, as, …
- Adpositions form a closed classClosed classIn linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items. Typical closed classes found in many languages are adpositions , determiners, conjunctions, and pronouns.Contrastingly, an open class offers...
of lexical items and cannot be productively derived from words of other categories.
- Adpositions form a closed class
- the, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you, …
Stranding
Preposition stranding is a syntacticSyntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
construct in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately next to its object. For example: Who did you give it to? where to refers to who, which is placed at the beginning of the sentence because it is an interrogative word. The above sentence is much more common and natural than the equivalent sentence without stranding: To who(m) did you give it? Preposition stranding is most commonly found in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, as well as North Germanic languages
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, 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...
such as Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
. The existence of preposition stranding in German and Dutch is debated. Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (languages of the Niger–Congo
Niger–Congo languages
The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
) and the dialects of some North American French speakers.
Stranding and English prescriptivism
Students are commonly taught that prepositions cannot end a sentence, although there is no rule prohibiting that use. Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
is said to have written, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put," illustrating the awkwardness that would result from a rule against the use of terminal prepositions. However, the attribution of this quote to Churchill is almost certainly apocryphal; furthermore, it is also wrong because up is not a preposition in that sentence at all. A correct rearrangement would be “This is the sort of English with which I will not put up” (preposition in bold), which still sounds awkward. Another rearrangement would be "This is the sort of English which I will not put up with"; here again, the "with" and "up" which might be construed as prepositions are not prepositions but are in fact part of the verb "put up with".
Classification
Adpositions can be organized into subclasses according to various criteria. These can be based on directly observable properties (such as the adposition's form or its position in the sentence) or on less visible properties (such as the adposition's meaning or function in the context at hand).Simple vs complex
Simple adpositions consist of a single word, while complex adpositions consist of a group of words that act as one unit. Some examples of complex prepositions in English are:- in spite of, with respect to, except for, by dint of, next to
The boundary between simple and complex adpositions is not clear-cut and for the most part arbitrary. Many simple adpositions are derived from complex forms (e.g. with + in → within, by + side → beside) through grammaticalization. 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
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
orthographic conventions recognize the indeterminate status of the following adpositions, allowing two spellings:
- anstelle / an Stelle ("instead of"), aufgrund / auf Grund ("because of"), mithilfe / mit Hilfe ("thanks to"), zugunsten / zu Gunsten ("in favor of"), zuungunsten / zu Ungunsten ("to the disadvantage of"), zulasten / zu Lasten ("at the expense of")
The boundary between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is also a fuzzy one. For English, this involves structures of the form "preposition + (article) + noun + preposition". Many sequences in English, such as in front of, that are traditionally regarded as prepositional phrases are not so regarded by linguists. 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 *an/*the account of, for the/*a sake of
- The range of possible adjectives is very limited: in great favor of, but not *in helpful favor of
- The number of the noun cannot be changed: by virtue/*virtues of
- It is impossible to use a possessive determiner: in spite of him, not *in his spite
Complex prepositions develop through the grammaticalization of commonly used free combinations. This is an ongoing process that introduces new prepositions into English.
Classification by position
The position of an adposition with respect to its complement allows the following subclasses to be defined:- A preposition precedes its complement to form a prepositional phrase.
-
- GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: auf dem Tisch, FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: sur la table, PolishPolish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: na stole ("on the table")- A postposition follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase.
- ChineseChinese languageThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
: 桌子上 zhuō zi shàng (lit. "table on"), FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: (minun) kanssani (lit. "my with"), TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
: benimle (or "benim ile"), Latin: mecum (both lit. "me with"), English: three days ago
- German
The two terms are more commonly used than the general adposition. Whether a language has primarily prepositions or postpositions is seen as an important aspect of its typological
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
classification, correlated with many other properties of the language.
It is usually straightforward to establish whether an adposition precedes or follows its complement. In some cases, the complement may not appear in a typical position. For example, in preposition stranding
Preposition stranding
Preposition stranding, sometimes called P-stranding, is the syntactic construction in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately adjacent to its object...
constructions, the complement appears before the preposition:
- {How much money} did you say the guy wanted to sell us the car for?
- She's going to the Bahamas? {Who} with?
In other cases, the complement of the adposition is absent:
- I'm going to the park. Do you want to come with?
- FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: Il fait trop froid, je ne suis pas habillée pour. ("It's too cold, I'm not dressed for [the situation].")
The adpositions in the examples are generally still considered prepositions because when they form a phrase with the complement (in more ordinary constructions), they must appear first.
Some adpositions can appear on either side of their complement; these can be called ambipositions (Reindl 2001, Libert 2006):
- He slept {through the whole night}/{the whole night through}.
- GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: {meiner Meinung nach}/{nach meiner Meinung} ("in my opinion")
An ambiposition entlang (along). It can be put before or after the noun related to it (but with different noun cases attached to it).
-
- die Straße entlang
- entlang der Straße
- along the road
Another adposition surrounds its complement, called a circumposition:
- A circumposition has two parts, which surround the complement to form a circumpositional phrase.
- English: from now on
- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: naar het einde toe ("towards the end", lit. "to the end to") - MandarinStandard ChineseStandard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
: 從 冰箱 裡 cóng bīngxīang lǐ ("from the inside of the refrigerator", lit. "from refrigerator inside") - FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
: à un détail près ("except for one detail", lit. "at one detail near")
"Circumposition" can be a useful descriptive term, though most circumpositional phrases can be broken down into a more hierarchical structure, or given a different analysis altogether. For example, the Mandarin example above could be analyzed as a prepositional phrase headed by cóng ("from"), taking the postpositional phrase bīngxīang lǐ ("refrigerator inside") as its complement. Alternatively, the cóng may be analyzed as not a preposition at all (see the section below regarding coverbs).
- An inposition is an adposition between constituents of a complex complement.
- Ambiposition is sometimes used for an adposition that can function as either a preposition or a postposition.
Melis (2003) proposes the descriptive term interposition for adpositions in the structures such as the following:
- word for word, page upon page, (French) coup sur coup (one after another, repeatedly), (Russian) друг с другом (with each other)
An interposition is not an adposition which appears inside its complement as the two nouns do not form a single phrase (there is no *word word or *page page). Examples of actually interposed adpositions can be found in Latin (e.g. summa cum laude, lit. "highest with praise"). But they are always related to a more basic prepositional structure.
Classification by complement
Although noun phrases are the most typical complements, adpositions can in fact combine with a variety of syntactic categories, much like verbs.- noun phrases: It was on {the table}.
- adpositional phrases: Come out from {under the bed}.
- adjectives and adjective phrases: The scene went from {blindingly bright} to {pitch black}.
- adverbs or adverb phrases: I worked there until {recently}
- infinitival or participial verb phrases: Let's think about {solving this problem}.
- interrogative clauses: We can't agree on {whether to have children or not}
- full sentences (see Conjunctions below)
Also like verbs, adpositions can appear without a complement; see Adverbs below.
Some adpositions could be described as combining 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 first forms a “small clause”, which then becomes the single complement of the preposition. (In the first example above, a word (such as as) may be considered to be elided
Elliptical construction
In linguistics, ellipsis or elliptical construction refers to the omission from a clause of one or more words that would otherwise be required by the remaining elements.-Overview:...
, which, if present, would clarify the grammatical relationship.)
Semantic classification
Adpositions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relations between their complement and the rest of the context. The following list is not an exhaustive classification:- spatial relations: location (inclusion, exclusion, proximity), direction (origin, path, endpoint)
- temporal relations
- comparison: equality, opposition, price, rate
- content: source, material, subject matter
- agent
- instrument, means, manner
- cause, purpose
- Reference
Most common adpositions are highly polysemous
Polysemy
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e., a large semantic field.Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, the links between these senses form a network, and ...
, and much research is devoted to the description and explanation of the various interconnected meanings of particular adpositions. In many cases a primary, spatial meaning can be identified, which is then extended to non-spatial uses by metaphorical or other processes.
In some contexts, adpositions appear in contexts where their semantic contribution is minimal, perhaps altogether absent. Such adpositions are sometimes referred to as functional or case-marking adpositions, and they are lexically selected by another element in the construction, or fixed by the construction as a whole.
- English: dispense with formalities, listen to my advice, good at mathematics
- RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: otvechat' na vopros (lit. "answer on the question"), obvinenie v obmane ("accusation in [i.e. of] fraud") - SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: soñar con ganar el título ("dream with [i.e. about] winning the title"), consistir en dos grupos ("consist in [i.e. of] two groups")
It is usually possible to find some semantic motivation for the choice of a given adposition, but it is generally impossible to explain why other semantically motivated adpositions are excluded in the same context. The selection of the correct adposition in these cases is a matter of syntactic well-formedness.
Subclasses of spatial adpositions
Spatial adpositions can be divided into two main classes, namely directional and static ones. A directional adposition usually involves motion along a path over time, but can also denote a non-temporal path. Examples of directional adpositions include to, from, towards, into, along and through.- Bob went to the store. (movement over time)
- A path into the woods. (non-temporal path)
- The fog extended from London to Paris. (non-temporal path)
A static adposition normally does not involve movement. Examples of these include at, in, on, beside, behind, under and above.
- Bob is at the store.
Directional adpositions differ from static ones in that they normally can't combine with a copula to yield a predicate
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
, though there are some exceptions to this, as in Bob is from Australia, which may perhaps be thought of as special uses.
- Fine: Bob is in his bedroom. (in is static)
- Bad: *Bob is to his bedroom. (to is directional)
Directional spatial adpositions can only combine with verbs that involve motion; static prepositions can combine with other verbs as well.
- Fine: Bob is lying down in his bedroom.
- Bad: *Bob is lying down into/from his bedroom.
When a static adposition combines with a motion verb, it sometimes takes on a directional meaning. The following sentence can either mean that Bob jumped around in the water, or else that he jumped so that he ended up in the water.
- Bob jumped in the water.
In some languages, directional adpositions govern a different case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
on their complement
Complement (linguistics)
In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
than static ones. These are known as casally modulated prepositions. For example, in German, directional adpositions govern accusative while static ones govern dative. Adpositions that are ambiguous between directional and static interpretations govern accusative when they are interpreted as directional, and dative when they are interpreted as static.
- in seinem Zimmer (in his-DATIVE room) "in his room" (static)
- in sein Zimmer (in his-ACCUSATIVE room) "into his room" (directional)
Directional adpositions can be further divided into telic
Telic
Telic, a purposeful or defined action, 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...
ones and atelic
Telic
Telic, a purposeful or defined action, 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...
ones. To, into and across are telic: they involve movement all the way to the endpoint denoted by their complement
Complement (linguistics)
In grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
. Atelic ones include towards and along. When telic adpositions combine with a motion verb, the result is a telic
Telic
Telic, a purposeful or defined action, 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...
verb phrase
Verb phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase or VP is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and the dependents of that verb. One can distinguish between two types of VPs, finite VPs and non-finite VPs . While phrase structure grammars acknowledge both, dependency grammars reject the existence of a...
. Atelic adpositions give rise to atelic verb phrases when so combined.
Static adpositions can be further subdivided into projective and non-projective ones. A non-projective static adposition is one whose meaning can be determined by inspecting the meaning of its complement and the meaning of the preposition itself. A projective static adposition requires, in addition, a perspective or point of view. If I say that Bob is behind the rock, you need to know where I am to know on which side of the rock Bob is supposed to be. If I say that your pen is to the left of my book, you also need to know what my point of view is. No such point of view is required in the interpretation of sentences like your pen is on the desk. Projective static prepositions can sometimes take the complement itself as "point of view," if this provides us with certain information. For example, a house normally has a front and a back, so a sentence like the following is actually ambiguous between two readings: one has it that Bob is at the back of the house; the other has it that Bob is on the other side of the house, with respect to the speaker's point of view.
- Bob is behind the house.
A similar effect can be observed with left of, given that objects that have fronts and backs can also be ascribed lefts and rights. The sentence, My keys are to the left of the phone, can either mean that they are on the speaker's left of the phone, or on the phone's left of the phone.
Classification by grammatical function
Particular uses of adpositions can be classified according to the function of the adpositional phrase in the sentence.- Modification
- adverb-like
- The athlete ran {across the goal line}.
- adjective-like
- attributively
- A road trip {with children} is not the most relaxing vacation.
- attributively
- in the predicate position
- The key is {under the plastic rock}.
- adverb-like
- Syntactic functions
- complement
- Let's dispense with the formalities.
- Here the words dispense and with complement one another, functioning as a unit to mean forego, and they share the direct object (the formalities). The verb dispense would not have this meaning without the word with to complement it.
- {In the cellar} was chosen as the best place to hide the bodies.
- Let's dispense with the formalities.
- complement
Adpositional languages typically single out a particular adposition for the following special functions:
- marking possessionPossession (linguistics)Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
- marking the agent in the passive construction
- marking the beneficiary role in transfer relations
Adverbs
There are many similarities in form between adpositions and adverbAdverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s. Some adverbs are clearly derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement, and some prepositions have adverb-like uses with no complement:
- {down the stairs}/downstairs, {under the ground}/underground.
- {inside (the house)}, {aboard (the plane)}, {underneath (the surface)}
It is possible to treat all of these adverbs as intransitive prepositions, as opposed to transitive prepositions, which select a complement (just like transitive vs intransitive verbs). This analysis could also be extended to other adverbs, even those that cannot be used as "ordinary" prepositions with a nominal complement:
- here, there, abroad, downtown, afterwards, …
A more conservative approach is to say simply that adverbs and adpositional phrases share many common functions.
Particles
Phrasal verbs in English are composed of a verb and a "particleGrammatical particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes . It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition...
" that also looks like an intransitive preposition. The same can be said for the separable verb prefixes found in Dutch and German.
- give up, look out, sleep in, carry on, come to
- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: opbellen ("to call (by phone)"), aanbieden ("to offer"), voorstellen ("to propose") - GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: einkaufen ("to purchase"), aussehen ("to resemble"), anbieten ("to offer")
Although these elements have the same lexical form as prepositions, in many cases they do not have relational semantics, and there is no "missing" complement whose identity can be recovered from the context.
Conjunctions
The set of adpositions overlaps with the set of subordinating conjunctions (or complementizerComplementizer
In linguistics , a complementizer is a syntactic category roughly equivalent to the term subordinating conjunction in traditional grammar. For example, the word that is generally called a complementizer in English sentences like Mary believes that it is raining...
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
All of these words can be treated as prepositions if we extend the definition to allow clausal complements.
This treatment could be extended further to conjunctions that are never used as ordinary prepositions:
- unless they surrender, although time is almost up, while you were on the phone
Coverbs
In some languages, the role of adpositions is served by coverbCoverb
In theoretical linguistics, a converb is a non-finite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination, i.e. notions like 'when', 'because', 'after', 'while'....
s, words that are lexically verbs, but are generally used to convey the meaning of adpositions.
For instance, whether prepositions exist in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
is sometimes considered an open question. Coverbs are often referred to as prepositions because they appear before the noun phrase they modify. However, unlike prepositions, coverbs can sometimes stand alone as main verbs. For instance, in Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
, dào can be used in a prepositional or a verb sense:
- qù ("to go") is the main verb: 我到北京去。Wǒ dào Běijīng qù. ("I go to Beijing.")
- dào ("to arrive") is the main verb: 我到了。Wǒ dào le. ("I have arrived.")
Case affixes
From a functional point of view, adpositions and morphological caseGrammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
markings are similar. Adpositions in one language can correspond precisely to case markings in another language. For example, the agentive noun phrase in the passive construction in English is introduced by the preposition by, while in Russian it is marked by the instrumental case
Instrumental case
The instrumental case 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...
. Sometimes both prepositions and cases can be observed within a single language. For example, the genitive case in German is in many instances interchangeable with a phrase using the preposition von.
Despite this functional similarity, adpositions and case markings are distinct grammatical categories:
- Adpositions combine syntactically with their complement phrase. Case markings combine with a noun morphologically.
- Two adpositions can usually be joined with a conjunction and share a single complement, but this is normally not possible with case markings:
-
- {of and for the people} vs. Latin populi et populo, not *populi et -o ("people-genitive and -dative")
- One adposition can usually combine with two coordinated complements, but this is normally not possible with case markings:
- of {the city and the world} vs. Latin urbis et orbis, not *urb- et orbis ("city and world-genitive")
- Case markings combine primarily with nouns, whereas adpositions can combine with phrases of many 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 this many distinct morphological cases.
- {of and for the people} vs. Latin populi et populo, not *populi et -o ("people-genitive and -dative")
It can be difficult to clearly distinguish case markings from adpositions. For example, the post-nominal elements in Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
are sometimes called case particles and sometimes postpositions. Sometimes they are analysed as two different groups because they have different characteristics (e.g. ability to combine with focus particles), but in such analysis, it is unclear which words should fall into which group.
- Japanese: 電車で (densha de, "by train")
- Korean: 한국에 (Hangug-e, "to Korea")
Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
and Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, and here 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 the house") vs (postposition) "talon edessä (house-gen in-front, "in front of the house")
In these examples, the case markings form a word with their hosts (as shown by vowel harmony
Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words.
Some languages, like Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, use postpositions to emphasize the meaning of the grammatical cases, and eliminate possible ambiguities
Ambiguity
Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...
in the meaning of the phrase. For example:
. In this example, "" is in the instrumental case
Instrumental case
The instrumental case 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...
, but, as its meaning can be ambiguous,the postposition saha is being used to emphasize the meaning of company.
In Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, each case often contains several different endings, some of which may be derived from different roots. An ending is chosen depending on gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, whether the word is a noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
or a modifier
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....
, and other factors.
Word choice
The choice of preposition (or postposition) in a sentence is often idiomatic, and may depend either on the verb preceding it or on the noun which it governs: it is often not clear from the sense which preposition is appropriate. Different languages and regional dialects often have different conventions. Learning the conventionally preferred word is a matter of exposure to examples. For example, most dialects of American EnglishAmerican English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
have "to wait in line", but some have "to wait on line". Because of this, prepositions are often cited as one of the most difficult aspects of a language to learn, for both non-native speakers and native speakers. Where an adposition is required in one language, it may not be in another. In translations, adpositions must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and one may be either supplied or omitted. For instance:
- Those learning English may find it hard to choose between on, in, and at, as other languages may use only one or two prepositions as the equivalents of these three in English.
- Speakers of English learning SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
or PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
have difficulty distinguishing between the prepositions por and para, as both frequently mean for in English.
- The German preposition von might be translated as by, of, or from in English depending on the sense.
See also
- Casally modulated prepositions
- Japanese particlesJapanese particlesJapanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect and assertiveness....
- List of English prepositions
- Common English usage misconceptions
- Old English prepositions
- Spanish prepositionsSpanish prepositionsThe prepositions of the Spanish language function exclusively as such, therefore, the language does not use postposition constructions. Most derive from Latin, excepting the Arabic-derived hasta ; yet the list herein includes two archaic prepositions — so and cabe , and excludes vía and pro , two...
External links
- Prepositions in the German language: Prepositions I, Prepositions II
- Merriam Webster Editor's take on whether it is ok to end a sentence with a Preposition
- With or Without a Complement: The Form and Function of Prepositions
- The Functions of Prepositions in English
- Some prepositions
- Английский предлог: "кем он дружит с?" (Сравнение русского и английского предлога)