Preposition and postposition Totally Explained

Everything about Postposition totally explained

In grammar, a preposition is a part of speech that introduces a prepositional phrase. For example, in the sentence "The cat sleeps on the sofa", the word "on" is a preposition, introducing the prepositional phrase "on the sofa". In English, the most used prepositions are "of", "to", "in", "for", and "on". Simply put, a preposition indicates a relation between things mentioned in a sentence. Linguists sometimes distinguish between a preposition, which precedes its phrase, a postposition, which follows its phrase, and as a rare case a circumposition, which surrounds its phrase. Taken together, these three parts of speech are called adpositions. In more technical language, an adposition is an element that, prototypically, combines syntactically with a phrase and indicates how that phrase should be interpreted in the surrounding context. Some linguists use the word "preposition" instead of "adposition" for all three cases.
In linguistics, adpositions are considered to be members of the syntactic category "P". "PPs", 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 prepositional phrases:

as a modifier to a verb
- sleep throughout the winter
- danced atop the tables for hours
as a modifier to a noun
- the weather in April
- cheeses from France with live bacteria
as the complement of a verb
- insist on staying home
- dispose of unwanted items
as the complement of a noun
- a thirst for revenge
- an amendment to the constitution
as the complement of an adjective or adverb
- attentive to their needs
- separately from its neighbors
as the complement of another preposition
- until after supper
- from beneath the bed

Adpositions perform many of the same functions as case 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 features, however, are often required of adpositions.

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.) In English, this is generally a noun (or something functioning as a noun, for example, a gerund), called the object of the preposition, together with its attendant modifiers.

An adposition establishes the grammatical relationship that links its complement phrase to another word or phrase in the context. In English, it also establishes a semantic relationship, which may be spatial (in, on, under, ...), temporal (after, during, ...), or logical (via, ...) in nature.

An adposition determines certain grammatical properties of its complement (for example its case). In English, the objects of prepositions are always in the objective case. In Koine Greek, certain prepositions always take their objects in a certain case (for example, εν always takes its object in the dative), and other prepositions may take their object in one of several cases, depending on the meaning of the preposition (for example, δια takes its object in the genetive or in the accusative, depending on the meaning).

Adpositions are non-inflecting (or "invariant"); for example, they don't have paradigms of forms (for different tenses, cases, genders, etc.) in the same way as verbs, adjectives, and nouns in the same language.

Properties

The following properties are characteristic of most adpositional systems.

Adpositions are among the most frequently occurring words in languages that have them. For example, one frequency ranking for English word forms begins as follows (adpositions in bold): ť :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: ť :of, to, in, for, on, with, as, by, at, from, …

Adpositions form a closed class of lexical items and can't be productively derived from words of other categories.

Stranding

Preposition stranding, sometimes called "P-stranding", is the syntactic construction in which a preposition appears without an object. (The preposition is then described as "stranded" or "hanging".) This construction is widely found in Germanic languages, including English and the North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic); whether or not German and Dutch exhibit legitimate preposition stranding is debatable. P-stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi, two languages in the Niger-Congo family, and certain dialects of French spoken in North America.
In English, some grammarians frown upon preposition stranding; see Disputes in English grammar.

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 isn't clear-cut. Many simple adpositions are derived from complex forms (for example 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:

anstelle / an Stelle ("instead of"), aufgrund / auf Grund ("because of"), mithilfe / mit Hilfe ("thanks to"), zugunsten / zu Gunsten ("in favor of"), zuungunsten / zu Ungunsten ("to the disadvantage of"), zulasten / zu Lasten ("at the expense of") The boundary between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is also a fuzzy one. For English, this involves structures of the form "preposition + (article) + noun + preposition". Many sequences in English, such as in front of, that are traditionally regarded as prepositional phrases are not so regarded by linguists. The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is "frozen" enough to be considered a complex preposition in English:

It contains a word that can't be used in any other context: by dint of, in lieu of.

The first preposition can't 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 can't be changed: by virtue/*virtues of

It is impossible to use a possessive determiner: in spite of him, not *in his spite Complex prepositions develop through the grammaticalization of commonly-used free combinations. This is an ongoing process that introduces new prepositions into English.

Classification by position

The 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. ť :German: auf dem Tisch, French: sur la table, Polish: na stole ("on the table")

A postposition follows its complement to form a postpositional phrase. ť :Mandarin: 桌子上 zhuōzi shàng (lit. "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:

vs. Latin urbis et orbis, not *urb- et orbis ("city and world-genitive")

Case markings combine primarily with nouns, whereas adpositions can combine with phrases of many different categories.

A case marking usually appears directly on the noun, but an adposition can be separated from the noun by other words.

Within the noun phrase, determiners and adjectives may agree with the noun in case (case spreading), but an adposition only appears once.

A language can have hundreds of adpositions (including complex adpositions), but no language has this many distinct morphological cases. 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're analysed as two different groups because they've different characteristics (for example ability to combine with focus particles), but in such analysis, it's 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's evidence to help distinguish the two:

Turkish: (case) sinemaya (cinema-dative, "to the cinema") vs (postposition) sinema için ("for the cinema")

Finnish: (case) talossa (house-inessive, "in the house") vs (postposition) "talon edessä (house-gen in-front, "in front of the house") In these examples, the case markings form a word with their hosts (as shown by vowel harmony, other word-internal effects and agreement of adjectives in Finnish), while the postpositions are independent words.
Word choice
In ambiguous cases, there isn't 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". It is for this reason that prepositions are one of the most difficult aspects of a language to learn for non-native speakers. In some cases, the preposition isn't translated from one language into another, and is thus omitted. Those learning English may have difficulty distinguishing between the prepositions on, in, and at, as other languages may use only one or two prepositions for the equivalent of three in English. On the other hand, speakers of English learning Spanish or Portuguese have difficulty distinguishing between the prepositions por and para, as both frequently mean for in English.

Further Information
Get more info on 'Postposition'.

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