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An adpositional phrase, in
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, is a
syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasal c ...
that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an
adposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
(preposition, postposition, or circumposition) as
head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may not ...
and usually a
complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class ...
such as a
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
. Language
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...
treats adpositional phrases as units that act as
argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
s or adjuncts. Prepositional and postpositional phrases differ by the order of the words used. Languages that are primarily
head-initial In linguistics, head directionality is a proposed parameter that classifies languages according to whether they are head-initial (the head of a phrase precedes its complements) or head-final (the head follows its complements). The head is the ...
such as
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
predominantly use prepositional phrases whereas head-final languages predominantly employ postpositional phrases. Many languages have both types, as well as circumpositional phrases.


Types

There are three types of adpositional phrases: prepositional phrases, postpositional phrases, and circumpositional phrases.


Prepositional phrases

The underlined phrases in the following sentences are examples of prepositional phrases in English. The prepositions are in bold: ::a. She walked to his desk. ::b. Ryan could see her in the room. ::c. David walked on top of the building. ::d. They walked up the stairs. ::e. Philip ate in the kitchen. ::f. Charlotte walked inside the house. ::g. As a student, I find that offensive. Prepositional phrases have a
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
as the central element of the phrase, i.e. as the head of the phrase. The remaining part of the phrase is called the prepositional complement, or sometimes the "object" of the preposition. In English and many other Indo-European languages it takes the form of a
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
, such as a
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
,
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
, or
gerund In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiabl ...
, possibly with one or more
modifier Modifier may refer to: * Grammatical modifier, a word that modifies the meaning of another word or limits its meaning ** Compound modifier, two or more words that modify a noun ** Dangling modifier, a word or phrase that modifies a clause in an a ...
s. A prepositional phrase can function as an adjective or adverb.


Postpositional phrases

Postpositional elements are frequent in
head-final In linguistics, head directionality is a proposed parameter that classifies languages according to whether they are head-initial (the head of a phrase precedes its complements) or head-final (the head follows its complements). The head is the ...
languages such as
Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian,
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
,
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
,
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been d ...
,
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Bengali and
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...
. The word or other
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone are ...
that corresponds to an English preposition occurs after its
complement A complement is something that completes something else. Complement may refer specifically to: The arts * Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave ** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-class ...
, hence the name ''post''position. The following examples are from Japanese, where the case markers perform a role similar to that of adpositions: ::a. ..mise ni :::store to = 'to the store' ::b. ..ie kara :::house from = 'from the house' ::c. ..hashi de :::chopsticks with = 'with chopsticks' And from Finnish, where the case endings perform a role similar to that of adpositions: ::a. ..kauppaan :::store.to = 'to the store' ::b. ..talosta :::house.from = 'from the house' ::c. ..puikoilla :::chopsticks.with = 'with chopsticks' While English is generally seen as lacking postpositions entirely, there are a couple of words that one can in fact view as postpositions, e.g. ''the crisis two years ago'', ''sleep the whole night through''. Since a phrase like ''two years ago'' distributes just like a prepositional phrase, one can argue that ''ago'' should be classified as a postposition, as opposed to as an adjective or adverb.


Circumpositional phrases

Circumpositional phrases involve both a preposition and a postposition, whereby the complement appears between the two. Circumpositions are common in
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...
and Kurdish. English has at least one circumpositional construction, e.g. ::a. From now on, he won't help. German has more of them, e.g. ::b. Von mir aus kannst du das machen. :::From me out can you that do = 'As far as I'm concerned, you can do it.' ::c. Um der Freundschaft willen sollst du es machen. :::around the friendship sake should you it do = 'For the sake of friendship, you should do it.'


Representation

Like with all other types of phrases, theories of syntax render the syntactic structure of adpositional phrases using trees. The trees that follow represent adpositional phrases according to two modern conventions for rendering sentence structure, first in terms of the constituency relation of
phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue ( Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in th ...
s and then in terms of the dependency relation of
dependency grammar Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesniè ...
s. The following labels are used on the nodes in the trees: Adv = adverb, N = nominal (noun or pronoun), P = preposition/postposition, and PP = pre/postpositional phrase:Phrase structure trees like the ones here can be found in, for instance, Brinton (2000), and dependency grammar trees like the ones here can be found in Osborne et al. (2011). :: These phrases are identified as prepositional phrases by the placement of PP at the top of the constituency trees and of P at the top of the dependency trees. English also has a number of two-part prepositional phrases, i.e. phrases that can be viewed as containing two prepositions, e.g. :: Assuming that ''ago'' in English is indeed a postposition as suggested above, a typical ago-phrase would receive the following structural analyses: :: The analysis of circumpositional phrases is not so clear, since it is not obvious which of the two adpositions should be viewed as the head of the phrase. However, the following analyses are more in line with the fact that English is primarily a head-initial language: ::


Distribution

The distribution of prepositional phrases in English can be characterized in terms of heads and dependents. Prepositional phrases typically appear as postdependents of nouns, adjectives, and finite and non-finite verbs, although they can also appear as predependents of finite verbs, for instance when they initiate clauses. For ease of presentation, just dependency trees are now employed to illustrate these points. The following trees show prepositional phrases as postdependents of nouns and adjectives: :: And the following trees show prepositional phrases as postdependents of non-finite verbs and as predependents of finite verbs: :: Attempts to position a prepositional phrase in front of its head noun, adjective, or non-finite verb are bad, e.g. ::a. his departure on Tuesday ::b. *his on Tuesday departure ::a. proud of his grade ::b. *of his grade proud ::a. He is leaving on Tuesday. ::b. *He is on Tuesday leaving. The b-examples demonstrate that prepositional phrases in English prefer to appear as postdependents of their heads. The fact, however, that they can at times appear as a predependent of their head (as in the finite clauses above) is curious.


Function

More often than not, a given adpositional phrase is an adjunct in the clause or noun phrase that it appears in. These phrases can also, however, function as arguments, in which case they are known as ''oblique'': ::a. She ran under him. - Adjunct at the clause level ::b. The man from China was enjoying his noodles. - Adjunct in a noun phrase. ::c. He gave money to the cause. - Oblique argument at the clause level ::d. She argued with him. - Oblique Argument at the clause level ::e. A student of physics attended. - Argument in a noun phrase


Particles

A prepositional phrase should not be confused with a sequence formed by the particle and the direct object of a
phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
. Phrasal verbs often consist of a verb and a particle, whereby the particle is mistakenly interpreted to be a preposition, e.g. ::a. He turned on the light. - ''on'' is a particle, not a preposition ::b. He turned it on. - Shifting identifies ''on'' as a particle ::a. She made up a story. - ''up'' is a particle, not a preposition ::b. She made it up. - Shifting identifies ''up'' as a particle ::a. They put off the party. - ''off'' is a particle, not a preposition ::b. They put it off. - Shifting identifies ''off'' as a particle. Particles are identified by shifting, i.e. the particle can switch places with the object when the object is a pronoun. Prepositions cannot do this, i.e. they cannot switch positions with their complement, e.g. ''He is relying on Susan'' vs. ''*He is relying her on''.


See also

* Adjunct *
Adposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
*
Argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
*
Dependency grammar Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation (as opposed to the ''constituency relation'' of phrase structure) and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesniè ...
*
Head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may not ...
* Phrase *
Phrase structure grammar The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue ( Post canonical systems). Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in th ...
*
Preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...


Notes


References

*Brinton, L. 2000. The structure of modern English: A linguistic introduction. *Lockwood, D. 2002. Syntactic analysis and description: A constructional approach. London: Continuum. *Osborne, T., M. Putnam, and T. Groß 2011. Bare phrase structure, label-less trees, and specifier-less syntax: Is Minimalism becoming a dependency grammar? The Linguistic Review 28, 315–364. *Stockwell, R. 1977. Foundations of syntactic theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. *Tallerman, M. 2005. Understanding syntax. 2nd edition. London: Hodder Arnold. *Tesnière, L. 1959. Éleménts de syntaxe structurale. Paris: Klincksieck. {{DEFAULTSORT:Adjectival Phrase Grammar Syntactic categories Grammatical construction types