The PoP is an inner-complement construction.
N | P | ||
[ | noun phrase | postposition | ]PoP |
inner complement | head |
Kinds of postpositions
To classify postpositions, the following criteria are employed:
- Syntactic function of the postpositional phrase: Most postpositions signal whether the phrase headed by them functions as a complement or as an adjunct. This produces the classes of grammatical
vs. concrete postpositions.
- Inside concrete postpositions, a subclassification into event-oriented and participant-oriented postposition obtains.
- Morphological structure of the postposition: A monomorphemic postposition is primitive. Postpositions comprising more than one morpheme are complex.
syntactic function
morphological structure ╲ |
grammatical | concrete |
primitive | + | + |
complex | - | + |
→ Grammatical postpositions are primitive; complex postpositions are concrete.