This is a list of English prepositions. In English, some prepositions are short, typically containing five letters or fewer. There are, however, a significant number of multi-word prepositions. Throughout the history of the English language, new prepositions have come into use, old ones fallen out of use, and the meaning of existing prepositions changed. Nonetheless, the prepositions are by and large a closed class. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In grammar, a preposition is a word that establishes a relationship between an object (usually a noun phrase) and some other part of the sentence, often expressing a location in place or time. ... English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers and Roman auxiliary troops from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the Northern Netherlands. ... In linguistics, a closed class (or closed word class) is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items. ...
In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ...
unto (largely supplanted by to; used in some formal, religious, and/or archaic contexts)
versus (loan word)
vis-à-vis (loan word)
A loanword (or a borrowing) is a word taken in by one language from another. ...
Not fully grammaticalized
concerning
considering
regarding
Preposition-like modifiers of quantified noun phrases
apart from
but
except
plus
save
Postpositions
ago as in "five years ago", sometimes considered an adverb rather than a postposition
apart as in "this apart", also used prepositionally ("apart from this")
aside as in "such examples aside", also used prepositionally ("aside from such examples")
away as in "five light years away", sometimes considered an adverb or an adjective rather than a postposition
hence as in "five years hence", sometimes considered an adverb rather than a postposition
notwithstanding also used prepositionally
on as in "five years on", also used prepositionally
through as in "the whole night through", also used prepositionally
withal archaic as a postposition meaning with
References
David Crystal (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Press Syndicate. ISBN 0-521-40179-8.
Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
In English, some prepositions are short, typically containing five letters or fewer.
Throughout the history of the English language, new prepositions have come into use, old ones fallen out of use, and the meaning of existing prepositions changed.
Nonetheless, the prepositions are by and large a closed class.
The preposition and its object make up a prepositional phrase, which can be used to modify noun phrases and verb phrases in the manner of adjectives and adverbs respectively.
Although the canonical object of a preposition is a noun phrase, there are cases in which another kind of phrase forms a preposition's object.
English has three common postpositions: "ago", "away", and "hence"; however, English also has a tendency to form postpositional compound words, such as "thereafter" and "wherein", a quality which it shares with German and Dutch.
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