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EspañolADPOSITION
In grammar, an 'adposition' is an element that, prototypically, combines syntactically with a phrase and indicates how that phrase should be interpreted in the surrounding context. If the location of a particular adposition is fixed with respect to its complement phrase, it may also be known as a 'preposition' (comes before the phrase), 'postposition' (after the phrase), or 'circumposition' (around the phrase).
In the terminology of some linguists, an adposition is called a preposition regardless of its position relative to its complement.[1]
In linguistics, adpositions are considered to be members of the syntactic category "P". "PPs",[2] consisting of an adpositional head and its complement phrase, are used for a wide range of syntactic and semantic functions, most commonly modification and complementation. The following examples illustrate some uses of English prepositions:
★ modifying verbs
★
★ sleep 'throughout' the winter
★
★ danced 'atop' the tables 'for' hours.
★ modifying nouns
★
★ the weather 'in' April
★
★ cheeses 'from' France 'with' live bacteria
★ complementing verbs
★
★ insist 'on' staying home
★
★ dispose 'of' unwanted items
★ complementing nouns
★
★ a thirst 'for' revenge
★
★ a message 'inside' our bottle
★ complementing adjectives and adverbs
★
★ attentive 'to' their needs
★
★ separately 'from' its neighbors
★ complementing other adpositions
★
★ 'away' from the window
★
★ 'from' beneath the bed
Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case markings, but adpositions are syntactic elements, while case markings are morphological elements.
Adpositions form a heterogeneous class, with fuzzy 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 properties are, however, characteristic of the most frequently used, "core" members 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[3] 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, monomorphemic words. According to the ranking cited above, for example, the most common English prepositions are:
::''of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from'', …
★ An adposition combines syntactically with exactly one complement phrase, most often a noun phrase (or, in a different analysis, a determiner phrase). (In some analyses, an adposition need have no complement. See below.)
★ An adposition establishes the grammatical relationship that links its complement phrase to another word or phrase in the context.
★ An adposition determines certain grammatical properties of its complement (e.g. its case).
★ Adpositions are non-inflecting (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.
★ Adpositions form a closed class of lexical items and cannot be productively derived from words of other categories.
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' 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. 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:[4]
★ 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.[5] 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.[6]
The surface position of an adposition with respect to its complement allows us to define the following subclasses:
★ A 'preposition' precedes its complement to form a prepositional phrase.
::German: 'auf' dem Tisch, French: 'sur' la table, Polish: 'na' stole ("'on' the table")
★ A 'postposition' follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase.
::Mandarin: 桌子'上' zhuōzi 'shàng' (lit. "table 'on'"), Hungarian: az ' asztalon' (lit. "the 'table on'")
These two terms are in fact much more commonly used than the more 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 according to research into linguistic universals.
It is usually straightforward to say whether an adposition precedes or follows its complement, but in some cases, the complement may not appear in its "normal" position. For example, in preposition stranding constructions, the complement appears somewhere to the left of 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 missing altogether:
★ I'm going to the park. Do you want to come with?
★ French: Il fait trop froid, je ne suis pas habillée 'pour'. ("It's too cold, I'm not dressed 'for' [this situation].")
The adpositions in these examples are generally still considered to be prepositions, because when they form a phrase with the complement (in more ordinary constructions), they must appear first.
Some adpositions can in fact appear on either side of their complement; these might be called 'ambipositions' (Libert 2006):
★ He slept {'through' the whole night}/{the whole night 'through'}.
★ German: {meiner Meinung 'nach'}/{'nach' meiner Meinung} ("'in' my opinion")
Another logical possibility is for the adposition to appear on ''both'' sides of its complement:
★ A 'circumposition' has two parts, which surround the complement to form a circumpositional phrase.
★
★ English: 'from' then 'on'
★
★ Dutch: 'naar' het einde 'toe' ("to the end", lit. "to the end to")
★
★ Mandarin: 'cóng' bīngxīang 'lǐ' ("from out of the refrigerator", lit. "from refrigerator inside")
★
★ French: 'à' un détail 'près' ("except for one detail", lit. "at one detail near")
"Circumposition" can be useful as a descriptive term, although on closer inspection, 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 being 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:
★ mot à mot ("word for word"), coup sur coup ("one after another, repeatedly"), page après page ("page upon page")
These phrases do require special attention, but the term "interposition" cannot be taken literally to mean that the adposition appears ''inside'' its complement (because the two nouns do not form a single phrase
★ ''mot mot'' or
★ ''page page''). Genuine examples of "interposed" adpositions can be found in Latin (e.g. ''summa cum laude'', lit. "highest with praise"), but these are always related to a more basic prepositional structure.
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}.''
★ adverb 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.
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
★ 'instrument', 'manner'
★ 'cause', 'purpose', 'agent'
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.
★ English: dispense 'with' formalities, listen 'to' my advice, good 'at' mathematics
★ Russian: otvechat' 'na' vopros (''lit.'' "answer 'on' the question"), obvinenie 'v' obmane ("accusation 'in' [i.e. 'of'] fraud")
★ Spanish: 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.
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, 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. (''into'' 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, such as German and Czech, directional adpositions govern a different case on their complement than static ones. 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 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.[7]
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 in order 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.[8]
Particular uses of adpositions can be classified according to the function of the adpositional phrase in the sentence.
★ Modification
★
★ adverb-like
★
★ adjective-like
★ Syntactic functions
★
★ complement
★
★ subject (impossible in many languages)
::{'In' the cellar} was chosen as the best place to hide the bodies.
Adpositional languages typically single out a particular adposition for the following special functions:
★ marking possession
★ marking the agent in the passive construction
★ marking the beneficiary role in transfer relations
We observe many similarities in form between adpositions and adverbs. Some adverbs are transparently 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[9] could also be extended to other adverbs, even those that cannot be used as "ordinary" prepositions with a nominal complement:
★ here, there, abroad, downtown, astray, …
★ today, tomorrow, yesterday, soon, afterwards, someday, …
★ recently, carefully, honestly, …
A more conservative approach is to say simply that adverbs and adpositional phrases share many common functions.
Phrasal verbs in English are composed of a verb and a "particle" 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'
★ Dutch: 'op'bellen ("call up"), 'aan'bieden ("offer"), 'voor'stellen ("present")
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.
The set of adpositions overlaps with the set of subordinating conjunctions (or complementizers):
★ (preposition) 'before'/'after'/'since' the end of the summer
★ (conjunction) 'before'/'after'/'since' the summer ended
★ It looks 'like' another rainy day (preposition) / it's going to rain again today (conjunction).
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
In some languages, the role of adpositions is served by coverbs, 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 Mandarin, ''dào'' can be used in a prepositional or a verb sense:
★ ''qù'' ("to travel") is the main verb: ''Wǒ 'dào' Běijīng qù.'' ("I travel 'to' Beijing.")
★ ''dào'' ("to arrive") is the main verb: ''Wǒ 'dào' le.'' ("I have 'arrived'.")
From a functional point of view, adpositions and morphological case markings are strikingly similar. An adpositional phrase in one language often corresponds directly to a case-marked noun phrase 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 this can be observed within a single language. For example, in certain uses the genitive case in German is interchangeable with a ''von'' prepositional phrase.
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 popul'i' et popul'o', not
★ popul'i' 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 urb'is' et orb'is', not
★ urb- et orb'is' ("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.
Still, it can be difficult to draw a clear boundary between case markings and 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.
★ Japanese: 電車'' (''densha 'de''', "'by' train")
★ Korean: 한국'' (''Hangug-'e', "'to' Korea")
Turkish and Finnish have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, and here there is evidence to help distinguish the two:
★ Turkish: (case) sinema'ya' (cinema-''dative'', "to the cinema") vs (postposition) sinema 'için' ("for the cinema")
★ Finnish: (case) talo'ssa' (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, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words.
In ambiguous cases, there is not always a clear rule which adposition is appropriate, and different languages and regional dialects may have different conventions. Learning the conventionally preferred word is a matter of exposure to examples. For example, most dialects of American English have "to wait ''in'' line", but some have "to wait ''on'' line".
1. An example is Huddleston and Pullum, ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (below, ''CGEL''), whose choice of terms is discussed on p.602.
2. Although seemingly appropriate, the term ''adpositional phrase'' is little used. ''CGEL'', p.602.
3. WordCount website
4. http://www.duden.de/index2.html?neue_rechtschreibung/neuregelung/trennung.html
5. ''CGEL'', pp.62-–23; Pullum, "Phrasal Prepositions in a Civil Tone".
6. Quirk and Mulholland, 1964.
7. Zwarts, Joost. 2005. "Prepositional Aspect and the Algebra of Paths." ''Linguistics and Philosophy'' 28.6, 739-779.
8. Creswell, Max. 1978. "Prepositions and points of view." ''Linguistics and Philosophy'', 2: 1-41.
9. Notably that of ''CGEL'', pp.612–16.
★ Bennett, David C. (1975) ''Spatial and Temporal Uses of English Prepositions: An Essay in Stratificational Semantics''. London: Longman.
★ Emonds, Joseph E. (1985) ''A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories''. Dordrecht: Foris.
★ Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. (2002) ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
★ Jackendoff, Ray S. (1973) "Base Rules for PPs". In S. R. Anderson and P. Kiparsky (eds), ''A Festschrift for Morris Halle'', pp. 345–356. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
★ 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. ISBN 3-89586-747-0.
★ 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) "http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001871.html 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.
★ List of English prepositions
★ Old English language (list of prepositions)
★ Spanish prepositions
★ Japanese particles
In the terminology of some linguists, an adposition is called a preposition regardless of its position relative to its complement.[1]
In linguistics, adpositions are considered to be members of the syntactic category "P". "PPs",[2] consisting of an adpositional head and its complement phrase, are used for a wide range of syntactic and semantic functions, most commonly modification and complementation. The following examples illustrate some uses of English prepositions:
★ modifying verbs
★
★ sleep 'throughout' the winter
★
★ danced 'atop' the tables 'for' hours.
★ modifying nouns
★
★ the weather 'in' April
★
★ cheeses 'from' France 'with' live bacteria
★ complementing verbs
★
★ insist 'on' staying home
★
★ dispose 'of' unwanted items
★ complementing nouns
★
★ a thirst 'for' revenge
★
★ a message 'inside' our bottle
★ complementing adjectives and adverbs
★
★ attentive 'to' their needs
★
★ separately 'from' its neighbors
★ complementing other adpositions
★
★ 'away' from the window
★
★ 'from' beneath the bed
Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case markings, but adpositions are syntactic elements, while case markings are morphological elements.
Definition
Adpositions form a heterogeneous class, with fuzzy 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 properties are, however, characteristic of the most frequently used, "core" members 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[3] 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, monomorphemic words. According to the ranking cited above, for example, the most common English prepositions are:
::''of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from'', …
★ An adposition combines syntactically with exactly one complement phrase, most often a noun phrase (or, in a different analysis, a determiner phrase). (In some analyses, an adposition need have no complement. See below.)
★ An adposition establishes the grammatical relationship that links its complement phrase to another word or phrase in the context.
★ An adposition determines certain grammatical properties of its complement (e.g. its case).
★ Adpositions are non-inflecting (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.
★ Adpositions form a closed class of lexical items and cannot be productively derived from words of other categories.
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. 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:[4]
★ 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.[5] 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.[6]
Classification by position
The surface position of an adposition with respect to its complement allows us to define the following subclasses:
★ A 'preposition' precedes its complement to form a prepositional phrase.
::German: 'auf' dem Tisch, French: 'sur' la table, Polish: 'na' stole ("'on' the table")
★ A 'postposition' follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase.
::Mandarin: 桌子'上' zhuōzi 'shàng' (lit. "table 'on'"), Hungarian: az ' asztalon' (lit. "the 'table on'")
These two terms are in fact much more commonly used than the more 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 according to research into linguistic universals.
It is usually straightforward to say whether an adposition precedes or follows its complement, but in some cases, the complement may not appear in its "normal" position. For example, in preposition stranding constructions, the complement appears somewhere to the left of 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 missing altogether:
★ I'm going to the park. Do you want to come with?
★ French: Il fait trop froid, je ne suis pas habillée 'pour'. ("It's too cold, I'm not dressed 'for' [this situation].")
The adpositions in these examples are generally still considered to be prepositions, because when they form a phrase with the complement (in more ordinary constructions), they must appear first.
Some adpositions can in fact appear on either side of their complement; these might be called 'ambipositions' (Libert 2006):
★ He slept {'through' the whole night}/{the whole night 'through'}.
★ German: {meiner Meinung 'nach'}/{'nach' meiner Meinung} ("'in' my opinion")
Another logical possibility is for the adposition to appear on ''both'' sides of its complement:
★ A 'circumposition' has two parts, which surround the complement to form a circumpositional phrase.
★
★ English: 'from' then 'on'
★
★ Dutch: 'naar' het einde 'toe' ("to the end", lit. "to the end to")
★
★ Mandarin: 'cóng' bīngxīang 'lǐ' ("from out of the refrigerator", lit. "from refrigerator inside")
★
★ French: 'à' un détail 'près' ("except for one detail", lit. "at one detail near")
"Circumposition" can be useful as a descriptive term, although on closer inspection, 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 being 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:
★ mot à mot ("word for word"), coup sur coup ("one after another, repeatedly"), page après page ("page upon page")
These phrases do require special attention, but the term "interposition" cannot be taken literally to mean that the adposition appears ''inside'' its complement (because the two nouns do not form a single phrase
★ ''mot mot'' or
★ ''page page''). Genuine examples of "interposed" adpositions can be found in Latin (e.g. ''summa cum laude'', lit. "highest with praise"), but these 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}.''
★ adverb 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.
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
★ 'instrument', 'manner'
★ 'cause', 'purpose', 'agent'
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.
★ English: dispense 'with' formalities, listen 'to' my advice, good 'at' mathematics
★ Russian: otvechat' 'na' vopros (''lit.'' "answer 'on' the question"), obvinenie 'v' obmane ("accusation 'in' [i.e. 'of'] fraud")
★ Spanish: 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, 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. (''into'' 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, such as German and Czech, directional adpositions govern a different case on their complement than static ones. 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 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.[7]
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 in order 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.[8]
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
★
★ adjective-like
★ Syntactic functions
★
★ complement
★
★ subject (impossible in many languages)
::{'In' the cellar} was chosen as the best place to hide the bodies.
Adpositional languages typically single out a particular adposition for the following special functions:
★ marking possession
★ marking the agent in the passive construction
★ marking the beneficiary role in transfer relations
Overlaps with other categories
Adverbs
We observe many similarities in form between adpositions and adverbs. Some adverbs are transparently 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[9] could also be extended to other adverbs, even those that cannot be used as "ordinary" prepositions with a nominal complement:
★ here, there, abroad, downtown, astray, …
★ today, tomorrow, yesterday, soon, afterwards, someday, …
★ recently, carefully, honestly, …
A more conservative approach is to say simply that adverbs and adpositional phrases share many common functions.
Phrasal verbs in English are composed of a verb and a "particle" 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'
★ Dutch: 'op'bellen ("call up"), 'aan'bieden ("offer"), 'voor'stellen ("present")
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 complementizers):
★ (preposition) 'before'/'after'/'since' the end of the summer
★ (conjunction) 'before'/'after'/'since' the summer ended
★ It looks 'like' another rainy day (preposition) / it's going to rain again today (conjunction).
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 coverbs, 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 Mandarin, ''dào'' can be used in a prepositional or a verb sense:
★ ''qù'' ("to travel") is the main verb: ''Wǒ 'dào' Běijīng qù.'' ("I travel 'to' Beijing.")
★ ''dào'' ("to arrive") is the main verb: ''Wǒ 'dào' le.'' ("I have 'arrived'.")
Case affixes
From a functional point of view, adpositions and morphological case markings are strikingly similar. An adpositional phrase in one language often corresponds directly to a case-marked noun phrase 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 this can be observed within a single language. For example, in certain uses the genitive case in German is interchangeable with a ''von'' prepositional phrase.
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 popul'i' et popul'o', not
★ popul'i' 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 urb'is' et orb'is', not
★ urb- et orb'is' ("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.
Still, it can be difficult to draw a clear boundary between case markings and 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.
★ Japanese: 電車'' (''densha 'de''', "'by' train")
★ Korean: 한국'' (''Hangug-'e', "'to' Korea")
Turkish and Finnish have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, and here there is evidence to help distinguish the two:
★ Turkish: (case) sinema'ya' (cinema-''dative'', "to the cinema") vs (postposition) sinema 'için' ("for the cinema")
★ Finnish: (case) talo'ssa' (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, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words.
Word choice
In ambiguous cases, there is not always a clear rule which adposition is appropriate, and different languages and regional dialects may have different conventions. Learning the conventionally preferred word is a matter of exposure to examples. For example, most dialects of American English have "to wait ''in'' line", but some have "to wait ''on'' line".
References
1. An example is Huddleston and Pullum, ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (below, ''CGEL''), whose choice of terms is discussed on p.602.
2. Although seemingly appropriate, the term ''adpositional phrase'' is little used. ''CGEL'', p.602.
3. WordCount website
4. http://www.duden.de/index2.html?neue_rechtschreibung/neuregelung/trennung.html
5. ''CGEL'', pp.62-–23; Pullum, "Phrasal Prepositions in a Civil Tone".
6. Quirk and Mulholland, 1964.
7. Zwarts, Joost. 2005. "Prepositional Aspect and the Algebra of Paths." ''Linguistics and Philosophy'' 28.6, 739-779.
8. Creswell, Max. 1978. "Prepositions and points of view." ''Linguistics and Philosophy'', 2: 1-41.
9. Notably that of ''CGEL'', pp.612–16.
★ Bennett, David C. (1975) ''Spatial and Temporal Uses of English Prepositions: An Essay in Stratificational Semantics''. London: Longman.
★ Emonds, Joseph E. (1985) ''A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories''. Dordrecht: Foris.
★ Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. (2002) ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
★ Jackendoff, Ray S. (1973) "Base Rules for PPs". In S. R. Anderson and P. Kiparsky (eds), ''A Festschrift for Morris Halle'', pp. 345–356. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
★ 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. ISBN 3-89586-747-0.
★ 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) "http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001871.html 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.
See also
★ List of English prepositions
★ Old English language (list of prepositions)
★ Spanish prepositions
★ Japanese particles
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