Before, after, in and around – the Placement of Prepositions in Word Order

The most important role of prepositions is relational; they connect fullmeaning words logically and syntactically. Given that the primary function is relational, a preposition typically grammatically interrelates with another constituent (called its complement). Prepositions have a relatively fixed position in word order and are usually placed before their complement (they are pre-positioned and are thus called prepositions). The postposition is also mentioned in Croatian grammars – when the preposition comes after the constituent (svemu unatoč). Analyses show that there are other positions of prepositions than these mentioned. Prepositions are part of frequent collocations that are actually one syntactic and semantic unit. Prepositions can be found in separately, as two parts of one unit (od grada do grada, s vremena na vrijeme), and also in direct contact (do potkraj šezdesetih godina). They can be placed in series and stylistically marked (pleonastic expressions – zbog poradi kojekakvih razloga, or elliptical phrases čaj sa šećerom ili bez)