Postpositioned

Postpositioned is an adjective used in linguistics to describe languages or constructions in which postpositions—function words that occur after the noun or pronoun—mark grammatical relations such as case, possession, or spatial relation. Unlike languages that use prepositions, which precede their noun phrases, postpositional systems place the marker after the head noun.

In standard terminology the preferred label is postpositional or postpositional phrase; “postpositioned” appears occasionally as a descriptive variant in grammars, but it is less common and can be confusing because “postposition” is itself a noun and not usually the basis for an -ed form.

Typology and distribution: Postpositional structures are widespread across language families. They are characteristic of many East Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean, as well as several languages of the Caucasus and parts of Africa and the Americas. In these languages, nominal phrases are followed by one or more postpositions or case markers that indicate grammatical roles.

Examples: Japanese uses particles after noun phrases to indicate subject, topic, or object, such as neko ga, where ga is a postposed marker after neko (cat). Turkish uses postposed case markers and locatives that attach to the noun, for example evde ‘in the house’ where -de is a postposition suffix. Hindi and Urdu also use postpositions after nouns to signal oblique cases, as in ladki ko (to the girl), se (from), meṃ (in).

Function and variation: Postpositions may express grammatical case, discourse focus, or spatial relations, and in many languages they co-occur with adjectives and determiners that follow the noun. Some languages have both prepositions and postpositions, with different functions or in different registers. See also: postpositional language, preposition, case marking.