PREPOSITION (Lat. pra'positio, from prce poncre, to place before, from prce, before + ponere, to place). In grammar (q.v.), an in declinable word preceding a noun or a pronoun in an oblique case and showing the relation of such a noun or pronoun to another noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb. Originally the preposition was only a specialized form of the adverb, and is con sequently in the last analysis a stereotyped case-form of a noun. Thus the ludo-Germanic *peri, 'around,' which is represented by Sanskrit pari, Greek rept, Latin per, Gothic fair, and German rer- in such verbs as vcrgehen, 'to go to destruction,' was primarily the locative case of an inferred noun *per-, connected with the verbal root *per, 'to cross.' The adverbial nature of prep ositions is shown by their use in verbal com pounds, as Latin per astra, 'through the stars,' beside perire, 'to go through, to perish.' In an earlier period the preposition did not "govern its case." The preposition was purely adverbial and the case of the noun depended altogether on other syntactic considerations. In such a sentence as Latin it ad [lumen., 'he goes to the river,' ad primarily pointed out the direction, while [lumen was an accusative denoting in itself the end of the motion implied in the verb. The decay of feeling for the force of in flectional endings led to an increased value of prepositions, which developed from local ad verbs to words which actually governed case relations. The term preposition is a faulty one,
as these words may in many languages stand after the noun which they govern, and they are then sometimes called postpositives or postposi lions. In English the preposition has lost in great part its adverbial character, although traces of this value survive in such uses as 'to see a thing through,' as compared with 'to see through a- thing.' As connectives they govern the ob jective case only, as in the house, to the house, from the house, where more conservative lan guages would employ a locative, an accusative, and an ablative respectively. The possessive ease has been supplanted in great measure by the ob jective ease with of. The principle is frequently maintained that a phrase or sentence should not end with a preposition, on account of the weak termination thus given. Many of the best lit erary authorities, however, disregard this, and there is no good reason for a rigid observance of such a rule either on stylistic or on historical grounds. Consult Delbriick, Veryleiehende Syn tax der indogermanisehen Sprachcu, vol. i. (Strassbnrg, 1893).