What is an adposition?

Definition
	An adposition is a cover term for prepositions and postpositions. It is a member of a closed set of items that
	occur before or after a complement composed of a noun phrase, noun, pronoun, or clause that functions as a noun phrase, and form a single structure with the complement to express its grammatical and semantic relation to another unit within a clause.

Examples (English)
	He went to the races. He promised to help with whatever was the matter.

Kinds
	Here are some kinds of adpositions:
	What is a postposition? What is a preposition?

Generic
	An adposition is a kind of
	What is a word? What is a relator?

Sources
	Comrie 1989 91
	Crystal 1980 277, 282
	Hartmann and Stork 1972 181–183
	Mish 1991 929
	Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik 1985 657–659

Context for this page:

Concept module: adposition
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): A
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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