Introduction: Complex adpositions and complex nominal relators

Abstract

In this introductory chapter, we address the issue of the existence and definition of complex adpositions – and complex nominal relators in general –, and provide a working definition on the basis of the existing literature on the subject. The existence of simple adpositions as a word class is now consensual, despite a long and convoluted history, which has seen them equated among other things with conjunctions, adverbs and prefixes, for obvious reasons of functional proximity. They are generally considered to be monomorphemic relational expressions whose main function in language is to introduce noun or noun phrases. Research on simple adpositions has been quite wide-ranging, from a theoretical perspective (e.g. Lindqvist 1994, Kurzon & Adler 2008, Libert 2013), and their typological variation has been given some attention already (Svorou 1994, Hagege 2010, Fagard 2010), with a wealth of studies on adpositions in individual languages such that we could not list them all.