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In the terminology of some linguists, an adposition is called a preposition regardless of its position relative to its complement.An example is Huddleston and Pullum, ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language'' (below, ''CGEL''), whose choice of terms is discussed on p.602. In Linguistics , adpositions are considered to be members of the Syntactic Category "P". " PPs ",Although seemingly appropriate, the term ''adpositional phrase'' is little used. ''CGEL'', p.602. 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:
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:
::''the, of, and, '''to''', a, '''in''', that, it, is, was, I, '''for''', '''on''', you'', …
::''of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from'', …
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:
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:http://www.duden.de/index2.html?neue_rechtschreibung/neuregelung/trennung.html
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.''CGEL'', pp.62-–23; Pullum, "Phrasal Prepositions in a Civil Tone". The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is "frozen" enough to be considered a complex preposition in English:
Complex prepositions develop through the grammaticalization of commonly-used free combinations. This is an ongoing process that introduces new prepositions into English.Quirk and Mulholland, 1964. Classification by position The surface position of an adposition with respect to its complement allows us to define the following subclasses:
::: na stole ("'''on''' the table")
::: 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 Universal s. 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:
In other cases, the complement of the adposition is missing altogether:
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):
Another logical possibility is for the adposition to appear on ''both'' sides of its complement:
"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:
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.
Also like verbs, adpositions can appear without a complement; see Adverbs below. Some adpositions could be described as combining with two complements:
It is more commonly assumed, however, that ''Sammy'' and the following predicate first forms a Small Clause , which then becomes the single complement of the preposition. 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:
Most common adpositions are highly Polysemous , and much research is devoted to the description and explanation of the various interconnected meanings of particular adpositions. In many cases a primary, spatial meaning can be identified, which is then extended to non-spatial uses by metaphorical or other processes. In some contexts, adpositions appear in contexts where their semantic contribution is minimal, perhaps altogether absent. Such adpositions are sometimes referred to as functional or '''case-marking''' adpositions, and they are lexically selected by another element in the construction, or fixed by the construction as a whole.
It is usually possible to find some semantic motivation for the choice of a given adposition, but it is generally impossible to explain why other semantically motivated adpositions are excluded in the same context. The selection of the correct adposition in these cases is a matter of syntactic well-formedness. 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''.
A ''static'' adposition normally does not involve movement. Examples of these include ''at, in, on, beside, behind, under'' and ''above''.
Directional adpositions differ from static ones in that they normally can't combine with a Copula to yield a Predicate , though there are some exceptions to this, as in ''Bob is from Australia'', which may perhaps be thought of as special uses.
Directional spatial adpositions can only combine with verbs that involve motion; static prepositions can combine with other verbs as well.
When a static adposition combines with a motion verb, it sometimes takes on a directional meaning. The following sentence can either mean that Bob jumped ''around'' in the water, or else that he jumped so that he ''ended up'' in the water.
In some languages, 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.
Directional adpositions can be further divided into . 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.Zwarts, Joost. 2005. "Prepositional Aspect and the Algebra of Paths." ''Linguistics and Philosophy'' 28.6, 739-779. 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.
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.Creswell, Max. 1978. "Prepositions and points of view." ''Linguistics and Philosophy'', 2: 1-41. Classification by grammatical function Particular uses of adpositions can be classified according to the function of the adpositional phrase in the sentence.
::{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:
OVERLAPS WITH OTHER CATEGORIES Adverbs We observe many similarities in form between adpositions and Adverb s. Some adverbs are transparently derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement, and some prepositions have adverb-like uses with no complement:
It is possible to treat all of these adverbs as intransitive prepositions, as opposed to transitive prepositions, which select a complement (just like transitive vs intransitive verbs). This analysisNotably that of ''CGEL'', pp.612–16. could also be extended to other adverbs, even those that cannot be used as "ordinary" prepositions with a nominal complement:
A more conservative approach is to say simply that adverbs and adpositional phrases share many common functions. 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).
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 Complementizer s):
All of these words can be treated as prepositions if we extend the definition to allow clausal complements. This treatment could be extended further to conjunctions that are never used as ordinary prepositions:
Coverbs In some languages, the role of adpositions is served by Coverb s, words that are lexically verbs, but are generally used to convey the meaning of adpositions. For instance, whether prepositions exist in Chinese is sometimes considered an open question. Coverbs are often referred to as prepositions because they appear before the noun phrase they modify. However, unlike prepositions, coverbs can sometimes stand alone as main verbs. For instance, in Standard Mandarin , ''dào'' can be used in a prepositional or a verb sense:
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:
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.
Turkish and Finnish have both extensive case-marking and postpositions, and here there is evidence to help distinguish the two:
In these examples, the case markings form a word with their hosts (as shown by Vowel Harmony , other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words. 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
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