Preposition

The preposition is a type of adposition that is characterized by preceding its complement. It introduces the so-called prepositional phrase. Prepositions generally have the function of introducing adjuncts, and sometimes also obligatory complements, linking the noun or noun phrase to the one immediately preceding it with a verb or other noun that precedes it. In some languages, prepositions may not start a prepositional phrase. This is the case of Germanic languages, such as English and German, where they can even appear at the end of the sentence.

Considering the different languages of the world, the preposition is a type of adposition that is characterized by typically appearing at the beginning of the syntactic component it affects; Thus, for example, the equivalent word that appears after and not before is called postposition.

Traditionally, Spanish grammar has defined it as the invariable part of the sentence that joins words denoting the relationship they have with each other.

Prepositions in Spanish

The official list of ASALE prepositions for current Spanish is: a, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, durante, en, entre, hacia, hasta, mediante, para, por, according to, without, so, on, after, versus, via.

Because the RAE has realized that the preposition so is rarely used and that it has the same meaning as under, under, it has been eliminated of the list, making the list the following: a, before, under, fits, with, against, of, from, during, in, between, towards, until, through, for, by, according to, without, on, after, versus, via.

Some details of the RAE and ASALE grammar published in 2009, and in its basic version in 2011, about the list of current Spanish prepositions, are:

• Versus is Latin preposition and has been incorporated into Spanish from English. It can mean, depending on the context, 'against' or 'against', preposition and preposition that are considered preferable to versus.
• Via, from a noun, indicates the place in which it passes or the medium: He went to Warsaw via Berlin or It will be issued via satellite.
• Relative adverbs where and When can be used as prepositions or quasi-prepositions when they precede certain nominal syntagmas: where his mother, when the war.
• Although except, less and Safe. have sometimes also been considered prepositions, they are currently classified as conjunctions.
• Even, yet and However are considered to belong to the category of adverbs.
• Pro is considered a separable prefix, since it is not used with a defined nominal group: it is said demonstrations for the defense of animalsNo!demonstrations for the defense of animals. The grammatical behavior of pro when it precedes an adjective is that of a prefix that forms a single word with it: Some pro-government congressmen...

Other considerations about Spanish prepositions:

• Of these series, the only tonic prepositions are according to and via; the rest are atone (when they become phonetically cytic of a name they have a secondary tonic accent).
• In modern Spanish two prepositions have fallen into disuse: It's okay., whose meaning has been replaced by the conjunctive locution nextand so.from the Latin preposition subwhich is limited to fixed phrases in conjunctive locutions as so color, so layer of, so kind of, pretext, so penaltyetc.
• These can also be added All right.with the meaning of "on the other side of", as in "overcoming the ocean"; aquendewith the meaning of "to this side of", as in "to the Pyrenees".
• It is discussed whether adverbs can be considered postponse prepositions Up and Down in syntagmas such as "mouth above" or "mouth down", although syntactically these forms do not meet various of the usual criteria to consider an invariant word as an adposition.
• All prepositions are invariable from the morphological point of view.

Prepositional phrases

The so-called prepositional phrases are two or more words that are equivalent to a preposition. They specify some aspects of space, time and mood that existing prepositions do not qualify: about, next to, around, before, in spite of, about, according to, with a view to, as long as, as long as, below, before, within i>, after, behind, above, as to, in front of, in order to, after, by virtue of, in front of, outside, thanks to, at the mercy of, next to, far from, because of, regarding, etc.

Contraction with the article

These prepositions necessarily precede a noun phrase. In the case of the prepositions "a" and "de", before the singular masculine definite article [el] form the contract articles "al" and "del", respectively. This contraction is not usually done in writing if the article "el" is part of a proper noun; for example: “This dish is typical of El Salvador”, “Several journalists from El País”, “The city of El Cairo”.

Metabasis of the preposition

On the other hand, prepositions can undergo metabasis, that is, a change of function, and become conjunctions forming conjunctive locutions; In Spanish it usually occurs sometimes when the preposition is followed by an infinitive verb:

Prepositions in verbal periphrases

On the other hand, prepositions sometimes act as links that unite auxiliary verbs with verbs in a non-personal form in the case of verbal periphrases: "I am going to sing", "I have to return"...

List of prepositions

Classification

Prepositions can be classified semantically:

• space
  • locationin, on, Low, through)
  • displacement (from, towards)
• time (during, after There, before being)
• comparison (instead, also)
• material or composition (made of wood, composed of tubes)
• possession (the house of the lady, the chariot of the lord)
• instrument (through a tool, written pencil)
• Officer (done by)
• purpose (to get, to achieve)
• cause (due to, because of her)
• reference (about, in reference to, talking about you)

Prepositions in other languages

Although generally some of the words identified as prepositions in other languages have similar properties to prepositions in Spanish, some languages have prepositions with non-existent functions in Spanish.

Prepositions in English

In English, prepositions have the function, as in Spanish, of introducing some types of indirect objects and circumstantial adjuncts.

Michael is in the kitchen.

I sent a letter to Mary = I sent Mary a letter.

They can also function as subordinating links for sentences with a non-conjugated verb:

This is useful for painting the windows.

In addition to these functions, they can appear as clitic elements of a verb, called prepositional verbs (in English, phrasal verbs). In this position they can appear even at the end of the sentence:

Please, get in!

What are you waiting for?

Among some of the prepositions, those of place in this case, are in, on, under, next to, behind and between.

Prepositions in Latin

Latin prepositions work basically like in Spanish. And although in Spanish many of the verbal prefixes are prepositions (pre-, con-, de-, a-, en-,...) as in Latin, in this language there is a greater number of forms and seems to have been a productive process compared to Spanish, where most of the verbal forms obtained by derivation prefixing a preposition are fossilized and are no longer productive for some prepositions.

Languages with postpositions

Some languages do not have prepositions proper, and in them the elements that perform the same function, instead of preceding a name, are placed after it. In that case, they are called postpositions. Basque, Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese or Quechua are cases of languages with postpositions or added suffixes: for example, the equivalent of in (the) house in Basque is etxean (etxe = house; -an = unessive case, determined singular), evde in Turkish ( ev = house; -de = unessive case), a házban in Hungarian (a = definite article; do = house; -ban = unessive case), talossa in Finnish (talo = house; -ssa = singular inesive case), 家で (uchi de) or 家に (uchi ni) in Japanese (家 = home; で or に = inesive postpositions); wasipi in southern Quechua (wasi = house; -pi = inessive case).

In general, postpositions occur in languages where the head of a phrase tends to be placed at the end of that phrase.