Questions tagged [prepositions]

A class of words denoting temporal or spatial relations or other semantic roles. They are placed before the noun phrase they modify.

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How does Tok Pisin get by with just a few prepositions?

I know the language only has 'two' prepositions (though there seems to be a some dispute to that). Regardless, the two prepositions 'long' and 'bilong' seem to be quite broad in definition. I do ...
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8 votes
6 answers
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Do there exist languages with wh-prepositions?

I can imagine a language where instead of "what did you put a toy on?" one says something like "whon did you put a toy?". Do such languages exist?
syntaxfairy's user avatar
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Is the word "here" a preposition?

In a related question, I got entangled in a debate whether the word "here" (which I would classify readily as an adverb) is in reality a preposition. I am curious which modern analyses find ...
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4 votes
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Term for the modified part of a prepositional complement

A prepositional complement is the noun phrase that follows a preposition. So, given sentences like John saw the woman with an umbrella. and John saw the moon with a telescope. The ...
prash's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
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Case assignment with prepositions

Consider these examples: 'I am happy with my parents' my parents gets assigned Case by 'with'. *'I am proud with my parents' My question is as follows: What is the reasoning for 2 being ...
PolkaDot's user avatar
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1 vote
3 answers
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Difference between particle and adverb in English

Some dictionaries such as Cambridge Online Dictionary defines the word particle as a word or a part of a word that has a grammatical purpose but often has little or no meaning: In the sentence "I ...
Rathony's user avatar
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Given that Tok Pisin has only two prepositions, how does it express a range of relations? [duplicate]

A recent question discussing minimal sets of prepositions gained an answer that that Tok Pisin, the English-based creole used as national language and lingua franca of Papua New Guinea has only two ...
hippietrail's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
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What other languages can get by in some cases without prepositions or particles like Somali?

I just learned of a clever workaround for prepositions: possessive phrases, as in Somali (and here): miiska agtiisa: near the table -> [the table his vicinity] dekedda agteeda: near the harbour -&...
Lance's user avatar
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