The preposition.

The problem of prepositions has caused very heated discussions, especially in the last few years: Both the mean­ing and the syntactical functions of prepositions have been the subject of controversy. We will treat of this matter at some length in Chapter XVIII, and here we will limit ourselves to a brief statement of our general view on the subject.

(1) Meaning. The meaning of prepositions is obviously that of relations between things and phenomena.

(2) Form. Prepositions are invariable.

(3) Function, (a) Prepositions enter into phrases in which they are preceded by a noun, adjective, numeral, stative, verb or adverb, and followed by a noun, adjective, numeral or pronoun, (b) In a sentence a preposition never is a separate part of it. It goes together with the following word to form an object, adverbial modifier, predicative or attribute, and in extremely rare cases a subject (There were about a hundred people in the hall).

9. The Conjunction. The problem of conjunctions is of the same order as that of prepositions, but it has attracted less attention. We will reserve full discussion of the matter to Chapter XIX and we will only state here the main points.

(1) Meaning. Conjunctions express connections between things and phenomena.

(2) Form. Conjunctions are invariable.

(3) Function, (a) They connect any two words, phrases or clauses, (b) In a sentence, conjunctions are never a special part of it. They either connect homogeneous parts of a sentence or homoge­neous clauses (the so-called coordinating conjunctions), or they " join a subordinate clause to its head clause (the so-called subordi­nating conjunctions).

A further remark is necessary here. We have said that prepo­sitions express relations between phenomena, and conjunctions express connections between them. It must be acknowledged that the two notions, relations and connections, are somewhat hard to distinguish. This is confirmed by the well-known fact that phrases of one and the other kind may be more or less synonymous: cf, e. g., an old man and his son and an old man with his son. It is also confirmed by the fact that in some cases a preposition and a con­junction may be identical in sound and have the same meaning (e. g. before introducing a noun and before introducing a subordi­nate clause; the same about after]. Since it is hard to distinguish between prepositions and conjunctions as far as meaning goes, and morphologically they are both invariable, the only palpable differ­ence between them appears to be their syntactical function. It may be reasonably doubted whether this is a sufficient basis for consid­ering them to be separate parts of speech. It might be argued that prepositions and conjunctions make up a single part of speech, with subdivisions based on the difference of syntactical functions. Such a view would go some way toward solving the awkward problem of homonymy with reference to such words as before, after, since, and the like. However, since this is an issue for further considera­tion, we will, for the time being, stick to the traditional view of prepositions and conjunctions as separate parts of speech.