What Is a Preposition?

William J. Rapaport

Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Department of Philosophy,
and Center for Cognitive Science
State University of New York at Buffalo,
Buffalo, NY 14260-2000

1. Prepositions are NOT prOpositions!

2. "A word used to show the relation of a noun or pronoun to some other word in the sentence is a preposition. ... A group of words which begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or pronoun is a prepositional phrase."
   From: Warriner, John E., & Griffith, Francis (1958), English Grammar and Composition: Grade 10 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World): 18.

   E.g., the following are (some) prepositions (in English):

   about, above, across, after, at, before, behind, between, by, during, for, in, into, of, on, over, through, to, up

3. "Preposition A connective which joins a noun or a pronoun to the rest of a sentence. A prepositional phrase may be used as either an adjective or an adverb."
   From: Watkins, Floyd C.; Dillingham, William B.; & Martin, Edwin T. (1978), Practical English Handbook: Instructor's Annotated Edition, Fifth Edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin): 49.

4. "PREPOSITION: A relatively closed grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles."
   From: Pullum, Geoffrey K., & Huddleston, Rodney (2002), "Prepositions and Preposition Phrases", Ch. 7 of Pullum & Huddleston (eds.), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press): 597-661; the (useful?) definition above is from p. 603.