Syntactic features

Semantic features

The Conjunction

Syntactic features

Morphological features

Structurally, prepositions fall into two categories: simple, or one-word, prepositions (in, on, for, to, about, after, etc.) and composite, or two- or threeword,

prepositions (ahead of, because of, according to; by means of, at the cost of, with

reference to, etc.).

However, not all scholars recognize the existence of composite prepositions.

According to Prof. Ilyish, we cannot term these groups prepositions, since a preposition is a word, not a word group, and it is essential to keep up the distinction between words and word groups. The term "compound preposition" is

too vague and is not conducive to a clear and consistent grammatical theory.

As far as phrases are concerned, the function of prepositions is to connect

words with each other. On the sentence level: a preposition is never a part of a

sentence by itself; it enters the part of sentence whose main centre is the following

noun, or pronoun, or gerund. It won’t be correct to say that prepositions connect

parts of a sentence. They do not do that, as they stand within a part of the sentence,

not between two parts.

Every conjunction has its own meaning, expressing some connection or

other existing between phenomena in extralinguistic reality.

When discussing prepositions, we noted that in a certain number of cases the

use of a given preposition is predicted by the preceding word: thus the verb depend

can only be followed by the preposition on (or upon), the adjective characteristic

only by the preposition of, etc. In such cases the preposition has no meaning of its

own. Conjunctions in this respect are entirely different. Their meaning is independent of preceding words.

Two levels are distinguished — that of phrases and that of sentences.

On the phrase level it must be said that conjunctions connect words and phrases. It is the so-called co-ordinating conjunctions that are found here, and only very rarely subordinating ones.

On the sentence level it must be said that conjunctions connect clauses (of different kinds). Here we find both so-called co-ordinating and so-called subordinating conjunctions.

In comparing prepositions with co-ordinating and subordinating conjunctions we cannot fail to notice that while prepositions have nothing in common with co-ordinating conjunctions, some prepositions are very close in

meaning to subordinating conjunctions, and in some cases a preposition and a

subordinating conjunction sound exactly the same.

It should also be noted that the difference between prepositions and conjunctions is much less pronounced in Modern English than in Russian, where prepositions are closely connected with cases, while conjunctions have nothing whatever to do with them. In English, with its almost complete absence of cases, this difference between prepositions and conjunctions is very much obliterated.

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