What is the origin of the word preposition

English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English preposicioun, from Old French preposicion, from Latin praepositio, praepositionem, from praepono (to place before). Compare French préposition. So called because it is placed before the word with which it is phrased, as in a bridge of iron, he comes from town, it is good for food, he escaped by running.

Alternative forms[edit]

  • præposition (archaic)

Pronunciation[edit]

  • enPR: prĕp-ə-zĭsh’ən, IPA(key): /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/

Noun[edit]

Examples (strict sense)
  • under the table
  • in my pocket
  • past noon

preposition (plural prepositions)

  1. (grammar, strict sense) Any of a class of non-inflecting words typically employed to connect a following noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial sense, with some other word: a particle used with a noun or pronoun (in English always in the objective case) to make a phrase limiting some other word.
    • 1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 9, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 495:

      And in (121) below, we see that when a wh-NP is used as the Object of a Preposition, the whole Prepositional Phrase can undergo WH MOVEMENT:
      (121) (a)      [To whom] can I send this letter —?
      (121) (b)      [About what] are they quarrelling —?
      (121) (c)      [In which book] did you read about it —?

    • 2014 June 1, “Net Neutrality”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 1, episode 5, HBO:

      I love this girl. “On which I can get my hands” — even in her darkest moment, she cannot bring herself to end a sentence with a preposition.

  2. (grammar, broad sense) An adposition.
  3. (obsolete) A proposition; an exposition; a discourse.
    • 1811 [1516], Robert Fabyan, Sir Henry Ellis, editor, The New Chronicles of England and France[1], page 116:

      [] he made a longe preposicion & oracion cōcernynge yͤ allegiaūce which he exortyd his lordes to owe

Hypernyms[edit]
  • (grammar, strict sense): adposition
Coordinate terms[edit]
  • (grammar, strict sense): circumposition
  • (grammar, strict sense): postposition
Derived terms[edit]

terms derived from preposition (noun)

[edit]

terms related to preposition (noun)

Translations[edit]

grammar: a type of word like «of, from, for, by»

  • Afrikaans: voorsetsel (af)
  • Albanian: parafjalë (sq) f
  • Amharic: መስተዋድድ (mästäwadd)
  • Arabic: جَارّ (ar) m (jārr), حَرْف الْجَرّ‎ m (ḥarf al-jarr)
    Egyptian Arabic: حرف جر‎ m (ḥarff garr)
  • Aragonese: please add this translation if you can
  • Armenian: կապ (hy) (kap), նախդիր (hy) (naxdir)
  • Asturian: preposición (ast) f
  • Azerbaijani: sözönü
  • Belarusian: прыназо́ўнік m (prynazóŭnik)
  • Bengali: সহাস্যে (śohaśśe)
  • Breton: araogenn (br)
  • Bulgarian: предло́г (bg) m (predlóg)
  • Burmese: ဝိဘတ် (my) (wi.bhat) (postpositional marker, equivalent of a preposition in Burmese)
  • Catalan: preposició (ca) f
  • Chechen: предложени (predloženi)
  • Chinese:
    Mandarin: 介詞介词 (zh) (jiècí), 前置詞前置词 (zh) (qiánzhìcí)
  • Czech: předložka (cs) f
  • Danish: forholdsord n, præposition (da) c
  • Dutch: voorzetsel (nl) n, kastwoord n
  • Esperanto: prepozicio (eo)
  • Estonian: eessõna
  • Faroese: fyriseting f
  • Finnish: prepositio (fi)
  • French: préposition (fr)
  • Galician: preposición (gl) f
  • Georgian: წინდებული (c̣indebuli), პრეპოზიცია (ṗreṗozicia)
  • German: Präposition (de) f, Verhältniswort (de), Vorwort (de), Lagewort (de)
  • Greek: πρόθεση (el) f (próthesi)
    Ancient: πρόθεσις f (próthesis)
  • Gujarati: please add this translation if you can
  • Hausa: please add this translation if you can
  • Hawaiian: ʻinaleo, ʻinawaena
  • Hebrew: מילת יחס / מִלַּת יַחַס (he) f (milat yakhas)
  • Hindi: पूर्वसर्ग m (pūrvasarg)
  • Hungarian: elöljáró (hu), elöljárószó (hu)
  • Icelandic: forsetning (is) f
  • Ido: prepoziciono (io)
  • Indonesian: kata depan, kata depan (id)
  • Interlingua: preposition (ia)
  • Irish: réamhfhocal (ga) m
  • Italian: preposizione (it) f
  • Japanese: 前置詞 (ja) (ぜんちし, zenchishi)
  • Kazakh: предлог (predlog), демеулік (demeulık)
  • Khmer: ធ្នាក់ (km) (thneak)
  • Korean: 전치사(前置詞) (ko) (jeonchisa)
  • Kurdish:
    Northern Kurdish: daçek (ku) f
  • Kyrgyz: предлог (ky) (predlog)
  • Lao: ຄຳເຊື່ອມ (kham sư̄am)
  • Latin: praepositio (la) f
  • Latvian: prievārds m, prepozīcija (lv) f
  • Ligurian: prepoxiçión f
  • Lithuanian: prielinksnis (lt) m
  • Macedonian: предлог m (predlog)
  • Malay: kata depan
  • Malayalam: ഗതി (ml) (gati)
  • Middle English: preposicion
  • Mongolian: угтвар үг (ugtvar üg)
  • Norman: préposition f
  • Norwegian: preposisjon (no) m
  • Old English: fōresetnes f
  • Pashto: please add this translation if you can
  • Persian: حرف اضافه (fa) (harf-e ezâfe)
  • Polish: przyimek (pl) m
  • Portuguese: preposição (pt) f
  • Romanian: prepoziție (ro) f
  • Russian: предло́г (ru) m (predlóg)
  • Scottish Gaelic: roimhear m
  • Serbo-Croatian:
    Cyrillic: предлог m, приједлог m, препозиција f
    Roman: predlog m, prijedlog (sh) m, prepozicija (sh) f
  • Sindhi: please add this translation if you can
  • Slovak: predložka f
  • Slovene: prêdlog (sl) m
  • Somali: please add this translation if you can
  • Spanish: preposición (es) f
  • Swahili: kihusishi
  • Swedish: preposition (sv) c
  • Tagalog: pang-ukol (tl)
  • Tajik: пешоянд (tg) (pešoyand)
  • Thai: บุพบท (th) (bùp-pá-bòt), บุรพบท (th) (bù-rá-pá-bòt)
  • Tigrinya: መስተዋድድ (ti) (mästäwadd)
  • Turkish: ilgeç (tr), edat (tr)
  • Turkmen: prepozisiýa, predlog
  • Ukrainian: прийме́нник (uk) m (pryjménnyk)
  • Urdu: حرف جار(harf-e jār), حرف جر(harf-e jarr)
  • Uyghur: ئالدى قوشۇلغۇچى(aldi qoshulghuchi)
  • Uzbek: predlog
  • Vietnamese: giới từ (vi) (介詞)
  • Volapük: präpod (vo)
  • Walloon: divancete (wa) f
  • Welsh: arddodiad m
  • West Frisian: ferhâldingswurd (fy) n
  • Wolof: please add this translation if you can
  • Xhosa: please add this translation if you can
  • Yiddish: פּרעפּאָזיציע‎ f (prepozitsye)
  • Yoruba: ọ̀rọ̀-atọ́kùn
  • Zulu: please add this translation if you can

See also[edit]

  • preverb

Etymology 2[edit]

pre- +‎ position

Alternative forms[edit]

  • pre-position

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈpɹiːpəˌzɪʃən/

Verb[edit]

preposition (third-person singular simple present prepositions, present participle prepositioning, simple past and past participle prepositioned)

  1. To place in a location before some other event occurs.
    It is important to preposition the material before turning on the machine.
Translations[edit]

to place in a location before some other event occurs

Finnish[edit]

Noun[edit]

preposition

  1. genitive singular of prepositio

Interlingua[edit]

Noun[edit]

preposition (plural prepositiones)

  1. (grammar) A word that is used in conjunction with a noun or pronoun in order to form a phrase.

Swedish[edit]

Noun[edit]

preposition c

  1. a preposition (part of speech)

Declension[edit]

Declension of preposition 
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative preposition prepositionen prepositioner prepositionerna
Genitive prepositions prepositionens prepositioners prepositionernas

[edit]

  • prepositionell
  • prepositionsadverbial
  • prepositionsattribut
  • prepositionsuttryck

References[edit]

  • preposition in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

  • Top Definitions
  • Quiz
  • More About Preposition
  • Examples
  • British
  • Cultural

This shows grade level based on the word’s complexity.

[ prep-uhzishuhn ]

/ ˌprɛp əˈzɪʃ ən /

This shows grade level based on the word’s complexity.


noun Grammar.

any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship, as in, on, by, to, since.

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Origin of preposition

1

1350–1400; Middle English preposicioun<Latin praepositiōn- (stem of praepositiō) a putting before, a prefix, preposition. See pre-, position

grammar notes for preposition

The often heard but misleading “rule” that a sentence should not end with a preposition is transferred from Latin, where it is an accurate description of practice. But English grammar is different from Latin grammar, and the rule does not fit English. In speech, the final preposition is normal and idiomatic, especially in questions: What are we waiting for? Where did he come from? You didn’t tell me which floor you worked on. In writing, the problem of placing the preposition arises most when a sentence ends with a relative clause in which the relative pronoun ( that; whom; which; whomever; whichever; whomsoever ) is the object of a preposition. In edited writing, especially more formal writing, when a pronoun other than that introduces a final relative clause, the preposition usually precedes its object: He abandoned the project to which he had devoted his whole life. I finally telephoned the representative with whom I had been corresponding. If the pronoun is that, which cannot be preceded by a preposition, or if the pronoun is omitted, then the preposition must occur at the end: The librarian found the books that the child had scribbled in. There is the woman he spoke of.

OTHER WORDS FROM preposition

prep·o·si·tion·al, adjectiveprep·o·si·tion·al·ly, adverbnon·prep·o·si·tion·al, adjectivenon·prep·o·si·tion·al·ly, adverb

qua·si-prep·o·si·tion·al, adjectivequa·si-prep·o·si·tion·al·ly, adverb

WORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH preposition

preposition , proposition

Words nearby preposition

preponderant, preponderate, prepone, preportion, prepose, preposition, prepositional phrase, prepositional verb, prepositive, prepositor, prepossess

Other definitions for preposition (2 of 2)

preposition2

or pre-po·si·tion

[ pree-puhzishuhn ]

/ ˌpri pəˈzɪʃ ən /


verb (used with object)

to position in advance or beforehand: to preposition troops in anticipated trouble spots.

Origin of preposition

2

First recorded in 1960–65; pre- + position

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

MORE ABOUT PREPOSITION

What is a preposition?

Prepositions are a category of words that are placed before nouns and pronouns to create phrases that modify nouns, verbs, or adjectives.

A preposition is the first part of a prepositional phrase. The preposition is followed by an object, such as a noun or pronoun, as in outside the house.

Prepositional phrases indicate a relationship between words in a sentence. For example, in I exercised after dinner, after is the preposition in the prepositional phrase after dinner. Together, after and dinner tell you more about (modify) the verb exercised. They tell you when I exercised.

Prepositions and prepositional phrases are used to begin phrases that modify nouns, verbs, and adjectives. While they often follow the words they modify, but they have to, Before supper, I washed my hands. Before is modifying washed, describing when I washed my hands.

Why are prepositions important?

The first records of the word preposition come from around 1350. Preposition combines the prefix pre-, meaning “before,” and the word position, meaning “relative location.” A preposition usually (but not always) comes before a noun or pronoun.

Prepositions are often used for describing relationships of space (on, around, below) or time (before, after). They also describe other relationships, such as purpose (the pencil used for drawing; the pencil I draw with) or connection (Paul traveled with Jane; the person Paul traveled with).

Did you know … ?

Prepositions are among the most commonly used words in English. In fact, 10 of the 100 most common English words are prepositions: of, in, to, for, with, on, by, out, into, and about.

What are real-life examples of prepositions?

The following table gives some examples of the many words and phrases that are used as prepositions.

Saint Mary’s University

Prepositions are central to grammar and English, if we don’t always enjoy learning about them.

Tripping over prepositions this morning. #amwriting

— David Scriver (@ScriverWrites) August 26, 2020

I can credit a lot of my success in using proper grammar to understanding prepositions.

— abbie (@AbbieAwsm) August 9, 2012

Quiz yourself!

Which of the following words is a preposition?

A. students
B. study
C. for
D. tests

How to use preposition in a sentence

  • Once the FDA authorizes a vaccine, the government plans to “preposition” doses to sites that states have already designated as the places where shots will be given first.

  • Despite the uncertainties over timing of vaccine approval and number of initial doses, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking states to be prepared to “preposition” doses in key locations throughout the country.

  • AnswerThePublic actively listens to Google’s suggestions API data and offers you prepositions and questions that often appear in conjunction with your keywords.

  • It is rare that a preposition is the most loaded and meaningful word in a book’s title.

  • Thirteen years ago, Google topped Fortune’s annual preposition-ending “100 Best Companies to Work For” list.

  • When I shut off the radio, the last word I hear must be a noun—not a verb, or adjective, or preposition.

  • In this text that would require heardes without the preposition: comp.

  • And there never warn’t any preposition, or, ruther, there was so many we couldn’t begin to manage ’em!

  • My positive is a preposition, and my comparative is to esteem.

  • At this conscienceless split to the infinitive and misplacing of the preposition, Miss Carew arose trembling perceptibly.

  • In the progress of language, these words would be contracted into on, which we denominate a preposition.

British Dictionary definitions for preposition


noun

a word or group of words used before a noun or pronoun to relate it grammatically or semantically to some other constituent of a sentenceAbbreviation: prep

Derived forms of preposition

prepositional, adjectiveprepositionally, adverb

Word Origin for preposition

C14: from Latin praepositiō a putting before, from pōnere to place

usage for preposition

The practice of ending a sentence with a preposition (Venice is a place I should like to go to) was formerly regarded as incorrect, but is now acceptable and is the preferred form in many contexts

Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for preposition


A part of speech that indicates the relationship, often spatial, of one word to another. For example, “She paused at the gate”; “This tomato is ripe for picking”; and “They talked the matter over head to head.” Some common prepositions are at, by, for, from, in, into, on, to, and with.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

«Preposition» redirects here. Not to be confused with proposition.

Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions),[1] are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (in, under, towards, before) or mark various semantic roles (of, for).[2]

A preposition or postposition typically combines with a noun phrase, this being called its complement, or sometimes object. A preposition comes before its complement; a postposition comes after its complement. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions – words such as in, under and of precede their objects, such as in England, under the table, of Jane – although there are a few exceptions including «ago» and «notwithstanding», as in «three days ago» and «financial limitations notwithstanding». Some languages that use a different word order have postpositions instead, or have both types. The phrase formed by a preposition or postposition together with its complement is called a prepositional phrase (or postpositional phrase, adpositional phrase, etc.) – such phrases usually play an adverbial role in a sentence.

A less common type of adposition is the circumposition, which consists of two parts that appear on each side of the complement. Other terms sometimes used for particular types of adposition include ambiposition, inposition and interposition. Some linguists use the word preposition in place of adposition regardless of the applicable word order.[1]

Terminology[edit]

The word preposition comes from Latin: prae- prefix (pre- prefix) («before») and Latin: ponere («to put»). This refers to the situation in Latin and Greek (and in English), where such words are placed before their complement (except sometimes in Ancient Greek), and are hence «pre-positioned».

In some languages, including Sindhi, Hindustani, Turkish, Hungarian, Korean, and Japanese, the same kinds of words typically come after their complement. To indicate this, they are called postpositions (using the prefix post-, from Latin post meaning «behind, after»). There are also some cases where the function is performed by two parts coming before and after the complement; this is called a circumposition (from Latin circum- prefix «around»).

In some languages, for example Finnish, some adpositions can be used as both prepositions and postpositions.

Prepositions, postpositions and circumpositions are collectively known as adpositions (using the Latin prefix ad-, meaning «to»). However, some linguists prefer to use the well-known and longer established term preposition in place of adposition, irrespective of position relative to the complement.[1]

Grammatical properties[edit]

An adposition typically combines with exactly one complement, most often a noun phrase (or, in a different analysis, a determiner phrase). In English, this is generally a noun (or something functioning as a noun, e.g., a gerund), together with its specifier and modifiers such as articles, adjectives, etc. The complement is sometimes called the object of the adposition. The resulting phrase, formed by the adposition together with its complement, is called an adpositional phrase or prepositional phrase (PP) (or for specificity, a postpositional or circumpositional phrase).

An adposition establishes a grammatical relationship that links its complement to another word or phrase in the context. It also generally establishes a semantic relationship, which may be spatial (in, on, under, …), temporal (after, during, …), or of some other type (of, for, via, …). The World Atlas of Language Structures treats a word as an adposition if it takes a noun phrase as a complement and indicates the grammatical or semantic relationship of that phrase to the verb in the containing clause.[3]

Some examples of the use of English prepositions are given below. In each case, the prepositional phrase appears in italics, the preposition within it appears in bold, and the preposition’s complement is underlined. As demonstrated in some of the examples, more than one prepositional phrase may act as an adjunct to the same word.

  • As an adjunct to a noun:
    • the weather in March
    • cheese from France with live bacteria
  • As a predicative expression (complement of a copula)
    • The key is under the stone.
  • As an adjunct to a verb:
    • sleep throughout the winter
    • danced atop the tables for hours
    • dispense with the formalities (see Semantic functions, below)
  • As an adjunct to an adjective:
    • happy for them
    • sick until recently

In the last of these examples the complement has the form of an adverb, which has been nominalised to serve as a noun phrase; see Different forms of complement, below. Prepositional phrases themselves are sometimes nominalized:

  • In the cellar was chosen as the best place to store the wine.

An adposition may determine the grammatical case of its complement. In English, the complements of prepositions take the objective case where available (from him, not *from he). In Koine Greek, for example, certain prepositions always take their objects in a certain case (e.g., ἐν always takes its object in the dative), while other prepositions may take their object in one of two or more cases, depending on the meaning of the preposition (e.g., διά takes its object in the genitive or in the accusative, depending on the meaning). Some languages have cases that are used exclusively after prepositions (prepositional case), or special forms of pronouns for use after prepositions (prepositional pronoun).

The functions of adpositions overlap with those of case markings (for example, the meaning of the English preposition of is expressed in many languages by a genitive case ending), but adpositions are classed as syntactic elements, while case markings are morphological.

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

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[4] begins as follows (prepositions in bold):
the, of, and, to, a, in, that, it, is, was, I, for, on, you, …
  • The most common adpositions are single, monomorphemic words. According to the ranking cited above, for example, the most common English prepositions are on, in, to, by, for, with, at, of, from, as, all of which are single-syllable words and cannot be broken down into smaller units of meaning.
  • Adpositions form a closed class of lexical items and cannot be productively derived from words of other categories.

Classification of adpositions[edit]

As noted above, adpositions are referred to by various terms, depending on their position relative to the complement.

While the term preposition is sometimes used to denote any adposition, in its stricter meaning it refers only to one which precedes its complement. Examples of this, from English, have been given above; similar examples can be found in many European and other languages, for example:

  • German: mit einer Frauwith a woman»)
  • French: sur la tableon the table»)
  • Polish: na stoleon the table»)
  • Russian: у меняin the possession of me» [I have])
  • Khmer: លើក្តារខៀន [ləː kdaːkʰiən] («on (the) blackboard»)
  • Tigrinya: አብ ልዕሊ ጣውላ [abː lɨʕli tʼawla] («at/on top table»); አብ ትሕቲ ጣውላ [abː tɨħti tʼawla] («at/on under table»)

In certain grammatical constructions, the complement of a preposition may be absent or may be moved from its position directly following the preposition. This may be referred to as preposition stranding (see also below), as in «Whom did you go with?» and «There’s only one thing worse than being talked about.» There are also some (mainly colloquial) expressions in which a preposition’s complement may be omitted, such as «I’m going to the park. Do you want to come with [me]?», and the French Il fait trop froid, je ne suis pas habillée pour («It’s too cold, I’m not dressed for [the situation].»)
The bolded words in these examples are generally still considered prepositions because when they form a phrase with a complement (in more ordinary constructions) they must appear first.

A postposition follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase. Examples include:

  • Latin: mecumwith me», literally «me with«)
  • Turkish: benimle or benim ilewith me», literally «my with«)
  • Chinese: 桌子 zhuōzi shàng (lit. «table on«); this is a nominal form which usually requires an additional preposition to form an adverbial phrase (see Chinese locative phrases)
  • English: ten kilometers away, ten months ago (both could be considered adverbs)

Some adpositions can appear either before or after their complement:

  • English: the evidence notwithstanding OR notwithstanding the evidence
  • German: meiner Meinung nach OR nach meiner Meinungin my opinion»)
  • German: die Straße entlang OR entlang der Straßealong the road»; here a different case is used when entlang precedes the noun)

An adposition like the above, which can be either a preposition or a postposition, can be called an ambiposition.[5] However, ambiposition may also be used to refer to a circumposition (see below),[6] or to a word that appears to function as a preposition and postposition simultaneously, as in the Vedic Sanskrit construction (noun-1) ā (noun-2), meaning «from (noun-1) to (noun-2)».[7]

Whether a language has primarily prepositions or postpositions is seen as an aspect of its typological classification, and tends to correlate with other properties related to head directionality. Since an adposition is regarded as the head of its phrase, prepositional phrases are head-initial (or right-branching), while postpositional phrases are head-final (or left-branching). There is a tendency for languages that feature postpositions also to have other head-final features, such as verbs that follow their objects; and for languages that feature prepositions to have other head-initial features, such as verbs that precede their objects. This is only a tendency, however; an example of a language that behaves differently is Latin, which employs mostly prepositions, even though it typically places verbs after their objects.

A circumposition consists of two or more parts, positioned on both sides of the complement. Circumpositions are very common in Pashto and Kurdish. The following are examples from Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji):

  • bi … re («with»)
  • di … de («in», for things, not places)
  • di … re («via, through»)
  • ji … re («for»)
  • ji … ve («since»)

Various constructions in other languages might also be analyzed as circumpositional, for example:

  • English: from now on
  • Dutch: naar het einde toe («towards the end», lit. «to the end to»)
  • Chinese: 冰箱 cóng bīngxiāng («from the inside of the refrigerator», lit. «from refrigerator inside»)
  • French: à un détail près («except for one detail», lit. «at one detail near»)
  • Swedish: för tre timmar sedan («three hours ago», lit. «for three hours since»)
  • German: aus dem Zimmer heraus («out from the room», lit. «from the room out»)
  • Tigrinya: ካብ ሕጂ ‘ደሓር («from now on», lit. «from now to later»)

Most such phrases, however, can be analyzed as having a different hierarchical structure (such as a prepositional phrase modifying a following adverb). The Chinese example could be analyzed as a prepositional phrase headed by cóng («from»), taking the locative noun phrase bīngxīang lǐ («refrigerator inside») as its complement.

An inposition is a rare type of adposition that appears between parts of a complex complement. For example, in the native Californian Timbisha language, the phrase «from a mean cold» can be translated using the word order «cold from mean»—the inposition follows the noun but precedes any following modifiers that form part of the same noun phrase.[8] The Latin word cum is also commonly used as an inposition, as in the phrase summa cum laude, meaning «with highest praise», lit. «highest with praise».

The term interposition has been used[9] for adpositions in structures such as word for word, French coup sur coup («one after another, repeatedly»), and Russian друг с другом («one with the other»). This is not a case of an adposition appearing inside its complement, as the two nouns do not form a single phrase (there is no phrase *word word, for example); such uses have more of a coordinating character.

Stranding[edit]

Preposition stranding is a syntactic construct in which a preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its complement. For example, in the English sentence «What did you sit on?» the preposition on has what as its complement, but what is moved to the start of the sentence, because it is an interrogative word. This sentence is much more common and natural than the equivalent sentence without stranding: «On what did you sit?» Preposition stranding is commonly found in English,[10] as well as North Germanic languages such as Swedish. Its existence in German is debated. Preposition stranding is also found in some Niger–Congo languages such as Vata and Gbadi, and in some North American varieties of French.

Some prescriptive English grammars teach that prepositions cannot end a sentence, although there is no rule prohibiting that use.[11][12] Similar rules arose during the rise of classicism, when they were applied to English in imitation of classical languages such as Latin. Otto Jespersen, in his Essentials of English Grammar (first published 1933), commented on this definition-derived rule: «…nor need a preposition (Latin: praepositio) stand before the word it governs (go the fools among (Sh[akespeare]); What are you laughing at?). You might just as well believe that all blackguards are black or that turkeys come from Turkey; many names have either been chosen unfortunately at first or have changed their meanings in course of time.»[13]

Simple versus complex[edit]

Simple adpositions consist of a single word (on, in, for, towards, etc.). Complex adpositions consist of a group of words that act as one unit. Examples of complex prepositions in English include in spite of, with respect to, except for, by dint of, and next to.

The distinction between simple and complex adpositions is not clear-cut. Many complex adpositions are derived from simple forms (e.g., with + inwithin, by + sidebeside) through grammaticalisation. This change takes time, and during the transitional stages, the adposition acts in some ways like a single word, and in other ways like a multi-word unit. For example, current German orthographic conventions recognize the indeterminate status of certain prepositions, allowing two spellings: anstelle/an Stelle («instead of»), aufgrund/auf Grund («because of»), mithilfe/mit Hilfe («by means of»), zugunsten/zu Gunsten («in favor of»), zuungunsten/zu Ungunsten («to the disadvantage of»), zulasten/zu Lasten («at the expense of»).[14]

The distinction between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is not a black and white issue: complex adpositions (in English, «prepositional idioms») can be more fossilized or less fossilized. In English, this applies to a number of structures of the form «preposition + (article) + noun + preposition», such as in front of, for the sake of.[15] The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is «frozen» enough to be considered a complex preposition in English:[16]

  • It contains a word that cannot be used in any other context: by dint of, in lieu of.
  • The first preposition cannot be replaced: with a view to but not *for/without a view to.
  • It is impossible to insert an article, or to use a different article: on account of but not *on an/the account of; for the sake of but not *for a sake of.
  • The range of possible adjectives is very limited: in great favor of, but not *in helpful favor of.
  • The grammatical number of the noun cannot be changed: by virtue of but not *by virtues of.
  • It is impossible to use a possessive determiner: in spite of him, not *in his spite.

Marginal prepositions[edit]

Marginal prepositions are prepositions that have affinities with other word classes, most notably verbs.[17] Marginal prepositions behave like prepositions but derive from other parts of speech. Some marginal prepositions in English include barring, concerning, considering, excluding, failing, following, including, notwithstanding, regarding, and respecting.

Proper versus improper[edit]

In descriptions of some languages, prepositions are divided into proper (or essential) and improper (or accidental). A preposition is called improper if it is some other part of speech being used in the same way as a preposition. Examples of simple and complex prepositions that have been so classified include prima di («before») and davanti (a) («in front of») in Italian,[18] and ergo («on account of») and causa («for the sake of») in Latin.[19] In reference to Ancient Greek, however, an improper preposition is one that cannot also serve as a prefix to a verb.[20]

Different forms of complement[edit]

As noted above, adpositions typically have noun phrases as complements. This can include nominal clauses and certain types of non-finite verb phrase:

  • We can’t agree on whether to have children or not (complement is a nominal clause)
  • Let’s think about solving this problem (complement is a gerund phrase)
  • pour encourager les autres (French: «to encourage the others», complement is an infinitive phrase)

The word to when it precedes the infinitive in English is not a preposition, but rather is a grammatical particle outside of any main word class.

In other cases, the complement may have the form of an adjective or adjective phrase, or an adverbial. This may be regarded as a complement representing a different syntactic category, or simply as an atypical form of noun phrase (see nominalization).

  • The scene went from blindingly bright to pitch black (complements are adjective phrases)
  • I worked there until recently (complement is an adverb)
  • Come out from under the bed (complement is an adverbial)

In the last example, the complement of the preposition from is in fact another prepositional phrase. The resulting sequence of two prepositions (from under) may be regarded as a complex preposition; in some languages, such a sequence may be represented by a single word, as Russian из-под iz-pod («from under»).

Some adpositions appear to combine with two complements:

  • With Sammy president, we can all come out of hiding again.
  • For Sammy to become president, they’d have to seriously modify the Constitution.

It is more commonly assumed, however, that Sammy and the following predicate forms a «small clause», which then becomes the single complement of the preposition. (In the first example, a word such as as may be considered to have been elided, which, if present, would clarify the grammatical relationship.)

Semantic functions[edit]

Adpositions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relations between their complement and the rest of the context. The relations expressed may be spatial (denoting location or direction), temporal (denoting position in time), or relations expressing comparison, content, agent, instrument, means, manner, cause, purpose, reference, etc.

Most common adpositions are highly polysemous (they have various different meanings). In many cases a primary, spatial meaning becomes extended to non-spatial uses by metaphorical or other processes. Because of the variety of meanings, a single adposition often has many possible equivalents in another language, depending on the exact context in which it is used; this can cause significant difficulties in foreign language learning. Usage can also vary between dialects of the same language (for example, American English has on the weekend, where British English uses at the weekend).

In some contexts (as in the case of some phrasal verbs) the choice of adposition may be determined by another element in the construction or be fixed by the construction as a whole. Here the adposition may have little independent semantic content of its own, and there may be no clear reason why the particular adposition is used rather than another. Examples of such expressions are:

  • English: dispense with, listen to, insist on, proud of, good at
  • Russian: otvechat’ na vopros («answer the question», literally «answer on the question»), obvinenie v obmane («accusation of [literally: in] fraud»)
  • Spanish: soñar con ganar el título («dream about [lit. with] winning the title»), consistir en dos grupos («consist of [lit. in] two groups»)

Prepositions sometimes mark roles that may be considered largely grammatical:

  • possession (in a broad sense) – the pen of my aunt (sometimes marked by genitive or possessive forms)
  • the agent in passive constructions – killed by a lone gunman
  • the recipient of a transfer – give it to him (sometimes marked by a dative or an indirect object)

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

  • in seinem Zimmer («in his room», static meaning, takes the dative)
  • in sein Zimmer («into his room», directional meaning, takes the accusative)

In English and many other languages, prepositional phrases with static meaning are commonly used as predicative expressions after a copula («Bob is at the store»); this may happen with some directional prepositions as well («Bob is from Australia»), but this is less common. Directional prepositional phrases combine mostly with verbs that indicate movement («Jay is going into her bedroom», but not *»Jay is lying down into her bedroom»).

Directional meanings can be further divided into telic and atelic. Telic prepositional phrases imply movement all the way to the endpoint («she ran to the fence»), while atelic ones do not («she ran towards the fence»).[21]

Static meanings can be divided into projective and non-projective, where projective meanings are those whose understanding requires knowledge of the perspective or point of view. For example, the meaning of «behind the rock» is likely to depend on the position of the speaker (projective), whereas the meaning of «on the desk» is not (non-projective). Sometimes the interpretation is ambiguous, as in «behind the house», which may mean either at the natural back of the house, or on the opposite side of the house from the speaker.[22]

Overlaps with other categories[edit]

Adverbs and particles[edit]

There are often similarities in form between adpositions and adverbs. Some adverbs are derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement (such as downstairs, from down (the) stairs, and underground, from under (the) ground). Some words can function both as adverbs and as prepositions, such as inside, aboard, underneath (for instance, one can say «go inside», with adverbial use, or «go inside the house», with prepositional use). Such cases are analogous to verbs that can be used either transitively or intransitively, and the adverbial forms might therefore be analyzed as «intransitive prepositions». This analysis[23] could also be extended to other adverbs, such as here (this place), there (that place), afterwards, etc., even though these never take complements.

Many English phrasal verbs contain particles that are used adverbially, even though they mostly have the form of a preposition (such words may be called prepositional adverbs). Examples are on in carry on, get on, etc., and over in take over, fall over, and so on. The equivalents in Dutch and German are separable prefixes, which also often have the same form as prepositions: for example, Dutch aanbieden and German anbieten (both meaning «to offer») contain the separable prefix aan/an, which is also a preposition meaning «on» or «to».

Conjunctions[edit]

Some words can be used both as adpositions and as subordinating conjunctions:

  • (preposition) before/after/since the end of the summer
  • (conjunction) before/after/since the summer ended
  • (preposition) It looks like another rainy day
  • (conjunction) It looks like it’s going to rain again today

It would be possible to analyze such conjunctions (or even other subordinating conjunctions) as prepositions that take an entire clause as a complement.

Verbs[edit]

In some languages, including a number of Chinese varieties, many of the words that serve as prepositions can also be used as verbs. For instance, in Standard Chinese, 到 dào can be used in either a prepositional or a verbal sense:

  • 我到北京去 wǒ dào Běijīng qù («I go to Beijing»; , meaning «to go», is the main verb, dào is prepositional meaning «to»)
  • 我到了 wǒ dào le («I have arrived»; dào is the main verb, meaning «to arrive»)

Because of this overlap, and the fact that a sequence of prepositional phrase and verb phrase often resembles a serial verb construction, Chinese prepositions (and those of other languages with similar grammatical structures) are often referred to as coverbs.

As noted in previous sections, Chinese can also be said to have postpositions, although these can be analyzed as nominal (noun) elements. For more information, see the article on Chinese grammar, particularly the sections on coverbs and locative phrases.

Case affixes[edit]

Some grammatical case markings have a similar function to adpositions; a case affix in one language may be equivalent in meaning to a preposition or postposition in another. For example, in English the agent of a passive construction is marked by the preposition by, while in Russian it is marked by use of the instrumental case. Sometimes such equivalences exist within a single language; for example, the genitive case in German is often interchangeable with a phrase using the preposition von (just as in English, the preposition of is often interchangeable with the possessive suffix ‘s).

Adpositions combine syntactically with their complement, whereas case markings combine with a noun morphologically. In some instances it may not be clear which applies; the following are some possible means of making such a distinction:

  • Two adpositions can usually be joined with a coordinating conjunction and share a single complement (of and for the people), whereas this is generally not possible with case affixes;
  • One adposition can usually combine with two coordinated complements (of the city and the world), whereas a case affix would need to be repeated with each noun (Latin urbis et orbis, not *urb- et orbis);
  • Case markings combine primarily with nouns, whereas adpositions can combine with (nominalized) phrases of different categories;
  • A case marking usually appears directly on the noun, but an adposition can be separated from the noun by other words;
  • Within the noun phrase, determiners and adjectives may agree with the noun in case (case spreading), but an adposition only appears once;
  • A language can have hundreds of adpositions (including complex adpositions), but no language has that many distinct morphological cases.

Even so, a clear distinction cannot always be made. For example, the post-nominal elements in 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., the ability to combine with focus particles), but in such analysis, it is unclear which words should fall into which group.

Turkish, Finnish and Hungarian have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, but there is evidence to help distinguish the two:

  • Turkish: (case) sinemaya (cinema-dative, «to the cinema») vs. (postposition) sinema için («for the cinema»)
  • Finnish: (case) talossa (house-inessive, «in the house») vs. (postposition) «talon edessä (house-genitive in front, «in front of the house»)
  • Hungarian: (case) tetőn (roof-superessive, «on the roof») vs. (postposition) «tető alatt («under the roof»)

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

See also[edit]

  • List of English prepositions
  • Old English prepositions
  • Spanish prepositions
  • Japanese particles
  • Relational noun

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c An example is Huddleston & Pullum (2002) («CGEL«), whose choice of terms is discussed on p. 602.
  2. ^ Huddleston & Pullum (2002), chapter 7.
  3. ^ «Chapter 85: Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase». World Atlas of Language Structures. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  4. ^ «Wordcount · Tracking the Way We Use Language». www.wordcount.org.
  5. ^ See Reindl (2001), Libert (2006).
  6. ^ Gernot Windfuhr, Iranian Languages, Routledge 2013 p. 736.
  7. ^ Vít Bubeník, From Case to Adposition: The Development of Configurational Syntax in Indo-European Languages, John Benjamins Publishing 2006, p. 109.
  8. ^ Matthew S. Dryer, «Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase», in The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Retrieved 2015-01-01.
  9. ^ See Melis (2003), p. 22. The term is used here in French, and in reference to the French language.
  10. ^ Lundin, Leigh (2007-09-23). «The Power of Prepositions». On Writing. Cairo: Criminal Brief.
  11. ^ Fogarty, Mignon (4 March 2010). «Top Ten Grammar Myths». Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  12. ^ O’Conner, Patricia T.; Kellerman, Stewart (2009). Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language. New York: Random House. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4000-6660-5.
  13. ^ Jespersen, Otto (1962). Essentials of English Grammar. London: George Allen & Unwin. p. 69. ISBN 1135662118.
  14. ^ Duden: Neue Rechtschreibung Crashkurs (Regel 11 Archived 2008-03-12 at the Wayback Machine).
  15. ^ CGEL, p. 618ff; Pullum (2005); Huddleston and Pullum (2005), pp. 146-47.
  16. ^ Quirk and Mulholland (1964).
  17. ^ Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Jan Svartvik, & Geoffrey Leech. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman. 667-68.
  18. ^ Maria Franca Zuccarello, Edvaldo Sampaio Belizário, As preposições acidentais (preposizioni improprie) italianas e seus termos correpondentes em português, CNLF, Vol. XII No. 16, p. 72.
  19. ^ Harm Pinkster, On Latin Adverbs, Amsterdam University Press 2005, p. 148.
  20. ^ Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, A&C Black 1992, p. 140.
  21. ^ Zwarts, Joost. 2005. «Prepositional Aspect and the Algebra of Paths.» Linguistics and Philosophy 28.6, 739–779.
  22. ^ Creswell, Max. 1978. «Prepositions and points of view.» Linguistics and Philosophy, 2: 1–41.
  23. ^ See for example CGEL, pp. 612–16.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Haspelmath, Martin. (2003) «Adpositions». International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513977-1.
  • Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
  • Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Reynolds, Brett (2022). A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-08574-8.
  • 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) «Phrasal Prepositions in a Civil Tone.» Language Log. Accessed 9 September 2007.
  • Quirk, Randolph, and Joan Mulholland. (1964) «Complex Prepositions and Related Sequences». English Studies, suppl. to vol. 45, pp. 64–73.
  • Rauh, Gisa. (1991) Approaches to Prepositions. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
  • Reindl, Donald F. (2001) «Areal Effects on the Preservation and Genesis of Slavic Postpositions». In Lj. Šarić and D. F. Reindl On Prepositions (= Studia Slavica Oldenburgensia 8), pp. 85–100. Oldenburg: Carl-von-Ossietzky-Universitat Oldenburg.

External links[edit]

Look up adposition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

  • Merriam Webster Editor’s take on whether it is ok to end a sentence with a Preposition
  • Some prepositions at Purdue Online Writing Lab

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you end a sentence with a preposition?

There is nothing wrong with ending a sentence in a preposition like to, with, for, or at. English speakers have been doing so since the days of Old English. The people who claim that a terminal preposition is wrong are clinging to an idea born in the 17th century and largely abandoned by grammar and usage experts in the early 20th.

What exactly is a preposition?

A preposition is a word—and almost always a very small, very common word—that shows direction (to in «a letter to you»), location (at in «at the door»), or time (by in «by noon»), or that introduces an object (of in «a basket of apples»). Prepositions are typically followed by an object, which can be a noun (noon), a noun phrase (the door), or a pronoun (you).

What is an example of a preposition?

The most common prepositions are at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, and with. Other common prepositions are about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, because of, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, close to, down, during, except, inside, instead of, into, like, near, off, on top of, onto, out of, outside, over, past, since, through, toward, under, until, up, upon, within, without.

Related Papers


The dissertation deals with Russian morphosyntactic phenomena involving adpositions. It is mostly devoted to a study of the distribution of the so-called pripredložnye ‘adprepositional’ pronouns in Russian. Their seemingly chaotic distribution proved to be hard to account for. Especially puzzling was the fact that beyond the P-object environments these pronouns, ‘n-forms’, appear only in the genitive standard DP of the Russian phrasal comparative, in which no preposition appears. I offer a uniform analysis of n-form distribution in Russian, which maintains the intuition that they are ‘adprepositional’ (occur in P-object positions). However, I refine the generalization stressing that n-forms are only licensed in the complement of P-heads, making a crucial distinction between a vaguely defined group of prepositions and lexemes that are syntactically P-heads. Only ‘prepositions’ that are P-heads license n-forms in their complement. I examine a large group of prepositions in detail, arguing that only some are P-heads. The ‘comparative puzzle’ is solved by proposing that the phrasal comparative involves a null P-head, licensing the genitive n-form in the standard DP. Lexemes labelled prepositions in traditional grammars of Russian are shown to split into three classes. Class I lexemes are P-heads, the only ‘true’ prepositions in a sense. Class II lexemes are structurally ambiguous between N-heads or P-N combinations (the complement being an argument of the nominal head), and a lexicalized P-head composed of syntactically inactive N- and P-elements. Class III lexemes are never P-heads: they are P-N combinations, transitive adverbs (A-heads) or gerunds (V-heads). This part of the dissertation has implications for the typology and morphosyntax of pronouns and case. It may inform studies aimed at classifying adpositions across languages. The classification of ‘prepositions’ developed here may prove relevant for understanding the non-homogeneous behavior of different prepositions in specific constructions. The remaining part of this dissertation delves deeper into the syntax of the genitive standard of comparison in Russian phrasal comparatives. I show that the standard DP and the DP it is contrasted with belong in the same clause. This favors the simple, Direct Analysis of the standard DP, under which it does not involve any silent structure. I offer a new generalization, the Oblique Correlate Constraint, that imposes morphosyntactic restrictions on the standard DP. I show that the constraint quite straightforwardly falls out from a more complex, Reduced Clause Analysis, positing abstract structure behind the standard. Looking at other languages, I suggest that the presence of such a constraint in their phrasal comparative may signal that they should be analyzed as reduced clauses. This adds to the growing body of literature on the structure of phrasal comparatives across languages and contributes to the notorious debate on whether phrasal standards of comparison should be analyzed as simple DPs or as reduced clauses.

Russian quantifiers are known for their complexity. This dissertation investigates expressions of indefinite quantity—specifically, accusative-assigning _s_ ‘about’ of approximate measure. This preposition has undergone a somewhat unique diachronic change which now requires that its complement consist of only a single word. I chronicle the advent of the single-word restriction (LONE-WD), showing historical data with multi-word complements of _s_. Adjective-noun and numeral-noun complements were once attested; Russian now requires only one word after _s_. This study investigates various apparent exceptions to LONE-WD, which are [sic] violated only under very specific circumstances. These exceptions clarify the morphosyntax of • paucal numerals (‘two’ through ‘four’ and the fractions _pol_ ‘half’ and _četvert’_ ‘quarter’), • «prequantifier» adjectives, • syntactic compounds (adjective-noun sequences which inflect separately but are treated by the syntax as a single word), and • large-quantity numbers (_tysjača_ ‘thousand’ and greater). Distributions of special genitive-singular and -plural forms, assigned only by quantifiers, are shown to be distinct: Only paucal numerals in morphological-nominative case assign «ADPAUCAL» genitive-singular forms (such as end-stressed _čaSA_ ‘hours’); a number of elements, not just numerals, trigger «COUNT» genitive-plural forms (_čelovek_ people’). Other constructions discussed include _okolo_ ‘approximately’, approximative inversion, _ètak_ ‘about’, and _neskol’ko_ ‘several’: Quantification is not a syntactic category but a semantic feature for which _okolo_ is unmarked; _okolo_ is quantificational only if its sister is a quantifier. Otherwise _okolo_ is merely proximative: ‘near’. Tests confirm that quantificational _okolo_ heads a prepositional phrase within the noun phrase. While most prepositional quantifiers have this structure, accusative-assigning _s_ is the relativized head of a hybrid phrase due to featural deficiencies. Numeral-noun complements of _s_ undergo approximative inversion—the noun moving to specifier position—to circumvent LONE-WD. Approximative inversion is likewise subject to a variant of LONE-WD, which requires a single prosodic word in the quantified constituent. When inversion is impossible a pleonastic count noun is inserted instead. An Optimality-theoretic model is proposed, formalizing LONE-WD and constraints requiring prosodic contiguity and exceptions to LONE-WD caused by words expressing more closely defined measure.

Southern Min is a major Chinese language of wider communication in many countries of Southeast Asia with a conservative estimate of seven million speakers in this region, the result of a gradual, centuries-long diaspora from China. This estimate includes the three main varieties of Hokkien, Teochew and Hainanese. In this chapter, we present an overview of the main features of the grammar of Hokkien, focusing on aspects of its phonology, morphology and syntax which are distinct from standard Mandarin, while highlighting features that it shares with other languages of the Southeast Asian area.

This paper discusses preposition (P) omission under sluicing (John talked with someone but I don’t know _ who) and the ability of P to take a clitic pronoun as a complement (We talked about’im), correlated with P-stranding (the ability of P to stay in situ when its complement undergoes movement, Who are you talking with_?) through generalizations that were proposed in Merchant (2001) and Abels (2003a,b) respectively. These studies establish P-stranding as a necessary condition for both phenomena, but I show that the correlations may stem instead from the ability of Ps to project independent Prosodic Words in the P-stranding languages.

In this paper we discuss a phenomenon unique to the East Slavic languages, in which a numeral and noun change places in order to express an approximate quantity. This construction has properties which tell us about the interactions of syntax and prosody. In order to account for interactions of these different grammar components, we make use of Optimality-theoretic constraints.

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