Prepositional Constructions in Legal Acts and their Grammatical Functions

The paper discusses prepositional constructions used in contemporary acts of law. The analysis covers the primary (traditional) prepositions as well as the secondary ones. When taking their nominal complement, the latter category shows the realization of two kinds of nominalization process: of the complete (proper) nominalization, which has its overt exponent in the form of an action noun; and of the reduced nominalization, in which formal constrains prevent the overt realization of an action noun. The author discusses the grammatical non-personal functions related to the traditional and the secondary prepositions. The analysis does not cover spatial and temporal meanings of the prepositions. The author wants to establish to what extent the particular grammatical functions in legal acts are realized by the traditional prepositions, and to what extent by the secondary ones. She also explains how the particular functions and legal meanings can be influenced by the particular nominalization processes