Адпозиции: пространственные и временные отношения в языке.

Class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations or mark various semantic roles

Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (in, under, towards, behind, ago, etc.) or mark various semantic roles (of, for). The most common adpositions are prepositions (those which precede their complement) and postpositions (those which follow their complement). An adposition typically combines with a noun phrase, this being called its complement, or sometimes object. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions – words such as in, under and of precede their objects, such as in England, under the table, of Jane – although there are a few exceptions including ago and notwithstanding, as in "three days ago" and "financial limitations notwithstanding". Some languages that use a different word order have postpositions instead (like Turkic languages) or have both types (like Finnish). The phrase formed by an adposition together with its complement is called an adpositional phrase (or prepositional phrase, postpositional phrase, etc.) – such phrases usually play an adverbial role in a sentence. A less common type of adposition is the circumposition, which consists of two parts that appear on each side of the complement. Other terms sometimes used for particular types of adposition include ambiposition, inposition and interposition. Some linguists use the word preposition in place of adposition regardless of the applicable word order.

Preposition stranding is a syntactic construct in which a preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its complement. For example, in the English sentence "What did you sit on?" the preposition on has what as its complement, but what is moved to the start of the sentence, because it is an interrogative word. This sentence is much more common and natural than the equivalent sentence without stranding: "On what did you sit?" Preposition stranding is commonly found in English, as well as North Germanic languages such as Swedish. Its existence in German is debated. Preposition stranding is also found in some Niger–Congo languages such as Vata and Gbadi, and in some North American varieties of French. Some prescriptive English grammars teach that prepositions cannot end a sentence, although there is no rule prohibiting that use. Similar rules arose during the rise of classicism, when they were applied to English in imitation of classical languages such as Latin. Otto Jespersen, in his Essentials of English Grammar (first published 1933), commented on this definition derived rule: " nor need a preposition (Latin: praepositio) stand before the word it governs (go the fools among (Sh[akespeare]); What are you laughing at?). You might just as well believe that all blackguards are black or that turkeys come from Turkey; many names have either been chosen unfortunately at first or have changed their meanings in the course of time."

Simple adpositions consist of a single word (on, in, for, towards, etc.). Complex adpositions consist of a group of words that act as one unit. Examples of complex prepositions in English include in spite of, with respect to, except for, by dint of, and next to. The distinction between simple and complex adpositions is not clear cut. Many complex adpositions are derived from simple forms (e. g., with + in → within, by + side → beside) through grammaticalisation. This change takes time, and during the transitional stages, the adposition acts in some ways like a single word, and in other ways like a multi word unit. For example, current German orthographic conventions recognize the indeterminate status of certain prepositions, allowing two spellings: anstelle/an Stelle ("instead of"), aufgrund/auf Grund ("because of"), mithilfe/mit Hilfe ("by means of"), zugunsten/zu Gunsten ("in favor of"), zuungunsten/zu Ungunsten ("to the disadvantage of"), zulasten/zu Lasten ("at the expense of"). The distinction between complex adpositions and free combinations of words is not a black and white issue: complex adpositions (in English, "prepositional idioms") can be more fossilized or less fossilized. In English, this applies to a number of structures of the form "preposition + (article) + noun + preposition", such as in front of, for the sake of. The following characteristics are good indications that a given combination is "frozen" enough to be considered a complex preposition in English:
It contains a word that cannot be used in any other context: by dint of, in lieu of. The first preposition cannot be replaced: with a view to but not *for/without a view to. It is impossible to insert an article, or to use a different article: on account of but not *on an/the account of; for the sake of but not *for a sake of. The range of possible adjectives is very limited: in great favor of, but not *in helpful favor of. The grammatical number of the noun cannot be changed: by virtue of but not *by virtues of. It is impossible to use a possessive determiner: in spite of him, not *in his spite.

Marginal prepositions are prepositions that have affinities with other word classes, most notably verbs. Marginal prepositions behave like prepositions but derive from other parts of speech. Some marginal prepositions in English include barring, concerning, considering, excluding, failing, following, including, notwithstanding, regarding, and respecting.

In descriptions of some languages, prepositions are divided into proper (or essential) and improper (or accidental). A preposition is called improper if it is some other part of speech being used in the same way as a preposition. Examples of simple and complex prepositions that have been so classified include prima di ("before") and davanti (a) ("in front of") in Italian, and ergo ("on account of") and causa ("for the sake of") in Latin. In reference to Ancient Greek, however, an improper preposition is one that cannot also serve as a prefix to a verb.

Some languages feature inflected adpositions – that is adpositions (usually prepositions) which are marked for grammatical person and/or grammatical number to give meanings such as "on me", "from you", etc. In the Indo European languages this phenomenon is mostly confined to the Celtic languages like Welsh and Irish. Polish also allows some degree of combining prepositions with pronouns in the third person.

Inflected prepositions are found in Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian Neo Aramaic and Amharic. For example, the Arabic preposition على inflects as علَيَّ , علَيْكَ) , علَيْهِ , etc.

Some Iranic languages, including Persian, have developed inflected prepositions. For example, Persian becomes ; becomes
In Iberian Romance languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, the preposition con or com has special forms incorporating certain pronouns (depending on the language). For example, in Spanish and Asturian conmigo means Historically, this developed from the Latin use of cum after a pronoun, as in mecum
Bororo, an indigenous language of Brazil, uses postpositions in all contexts: tori ji When these modify a pronoun rather than a full noun, the phrase contracts into an inflected postposition (and therefore looks like a pronominal prefix, rather than a suffix as in the examples above: bagai , i wagai ).

There are often similarities in form between adpositions and adverbs. Some adverbs are derived from the fusion of a preposition and its complement (such as downstairs, from down (the) stairs, and underground, from under (the) ground). Some words can function both as adverbs and as prepositions, such as inside, aboard, underneath (for instance, one can say "go inside", with adverbial use, or "go inside the house", with prepositional use). Such cases are analogous to verbs that can be used either transitively or intransitively, and the adverbial forms might therefore be analyzed as "intransitive prepositions". This analysis could also be extended to other adverbs, such as here (this place), there (that place), afterward, etc., even though these never take complements. Many English phrasal verbs contain particles that are used adverbially, even though they mostly have the form of a preposition (such words may be called prepositional adverbs). Examples are on in carry on, get on, etc., and over in take over, fall over, and so on. The equivalents in Dutch and German are separable prefixes, which also often have the same form as prepositions: for example, Dutch aanbieden and German anbieten (both meaning "to offer") contain the separable prefix aan/an, which is also a preposition meaning "on" or "to".