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The following are single-word prepositions that take clauses as complements. Prepositions marked with an asterisk in this section can only take non-finite clauses as complements. Note that dictionaries and grammars informed by concepts from traditional grammar may categorize these conjunctive prepositions as subordinating conjunctions.
Prepositions can be categorized according to whether the preposition takes a complement, what kind of complement the preposition takes, on what side of the preposition the complement occurs, and whether the preposition consists of one word or multiple words. A preposition that takes a noun-phrase complement is called a transitive preposition (e ...
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".
Prepositions form a closed word class, [28] although there are also certain phrases that serve as prepositions, such as in front of. A single preposition may have a variety of meanings, often including temporal, spatial and abstract. Many words that are prepositions can also serve as adverbs.
[e] All these words can also be used as prepositions, but the prepositional use is distinct, and modern dictionaries may list, for example, to (particle) and to (preposition) as separate lexemes. [f] In the particle verb construction, they cannot be construed as prepositions because they are not being used as part of a prepositional phrase. f.
Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circumposition) as head and usually a complement such as a noun phrase. Language syntax treats adpositional phrases as units that act as arguments or adjuncts. Prepositional and postpositional phrases differ by the order of the words used.
Preposition (relates) a word that relates words to each other in a phrase or sentence and aids in syntactic context (in, of). Prepositions show the relationship between a noun or a pronoun with another word in the sentence. Conjunction (connects) a syntactic connector; links words, phrases, or clauses (and, but). Conjunctions connect words or ...
For example, the prepositional phrase under threat functions as a pre-head modifier in the noun phrase the under-threat postal service. The adjective-like nature of these prepositional phrases is indicated by the tendency for them to be hyphenated in writing and the fact that they can typically be paraphrased with an adjective phrase (compare ...