An adpositional phrase is a linguistics term defining a syntactic category that includes prepositional phrases and postpositional phrases. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition in the head position and usually a complement such as a noun phrase. Language syntax treats adpositional phrases as units that act as complements or adjuncts.
Postpositional and prepositional phrases differ by the order of the words used. Head-first languages such as English normally use prepositional phrases while head-final languages use postpositional.
Read more about Adpositional Phrase: Prepositional Phrases, Postpositional Phrases
Famous quotes containing the word phrase:
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)