Esperanto Grammar - Prepositions

Prepositions

Although Esperanto word order is fairly free, prepositions must come at the beginning of a noun phrase. Whereas in languages such as German, prepositions may require a noun to be in various cases (accusative, dative, etc.), in Esperanto all prepositions govern the nominative: por Johano (for John). The only exception is when there are two or more prepositions and one is replaced by the accusative.

Prepositions should be used with a definite meaning. When no one preposition is clearly correct, the indefinite preposition je should be used:

ili iros je la tria de majo (they'll go on the third of May: the "on" isn't literally true).

Alternatively, the accusative may be used without a preposition:

ili iros la trian de majo.

Note that although la trian (the third) is in the accusative, de majo (of May) is still a prepositional phrase, and so the noun majo remains in the nominative case.

A frequent use of the accusative is in place of al (to) to indicate the direction or goal of motion (allative construction). It is especially common when there would otherwise be a double preposition:

la kato ĉasis la muson en la domo (the cat chased the mouse in the house)

la kato ĉasis la muson en la domon (the cat chased the mouse into the house).

The accusative/allative may stand in for other prepositions as well, especially when they have vague meanings that don't add much to the clause. Adverbs, with or without the case suffix, are frequently used in place of prepositional phrases:

li iris al sia hejmo (he went to his home)

li iris hejmen (he went home)

Both por and pro often translate English 'for'. However, they distinguish for a goal (looking forward in time, or causing: por) and for a cause (looking back in time, or being caused by: pro): To vote por your friend means to cast a ballot with their name on it, whereas to vote pro your friend would mean to vote in their place or as they asked you to.

The preposition most distinct from English usage is perhaps de, which corresponds to English of, from, off, and (done) by:

libro de Johano (John's book)

li venis de la butiko (he came from the shop)

mordita de hundo (bitten by a dog)

However, English of corresponds to several Esperanto prepositions as well: de, el (out of, made of), and da (quantity of, unity of form and contents):

tablo el ligno (a table of wood)

glaso da vino (a glass of wine)

listo da kondiĉoj de la kandidatoj (a list of conditions from the candidates)

The last of these, da, is semantically Slavic and is difficult for Western Europeans, to the extent that even many Esperanto dictionaries and grammars define it incorrectly.

Occasionally a new preposition is coined. As a bare root may indicate a preposition or interjection, removing the grammatical suffix from another part of speech can be used to derive a preposition or interjection. For example, from fari (to do, to make) we get the preposition far (done by).