ABSTRACT
Prepositions are some of the most frequent words in English. They are a closed word class, in that their number is limited, and it is not easy to make new members. As such, they are counted among the function words of English, having a grammatical role and sometimes containing little or no meaning. They have two main functions in grammar: to introduce prepositional phrases which operate independently as adverbials in clauses; to relate noun phrases to preceding nouns, adjectives and verbs. The prepositional phrases following nouns and adjectives in such cases are sometimes called noun/adjective complements, and they form part of the postmodification of the noun or adjective. With noun and adjective complements, comparable verb forms often have no preposition. Prepositions are always part of prepositional phrases. Prepositions may also occur as part of longer multi-word prepositions. Sometimes prepositions are very closely related to the preceding words.
