Prepositions

Prepositions in Spanish,, like those in other languages, are 1 or more connecting words (such as con, de or para) that serve to indicate a relationship between a content word (noun, verb, or adjective) and a following noun phrase (or noun, or pronoun). This relationship is often spatial or temporal (where or when the action takes place), but they can express other relationships as well. As implied by the name, Spanish "prepositions" (like those of English) are positioned before their objects.

Spanish prepositions can be classified as either "simple", consisting of a single word, or "compound", consisting of two or three words. The prepositions of Spanish form a closed class and so they are a limited set to which new items are rarely added.

Many Spanish school pupils memorize the following list: a, ante, bajo, cabe, con, contra, de, desde, durante, en, entre, hacia, hasta, mediante, para, por, según, sin, so, sobre, and tras.

Compound prepositions

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Some compound prepositions duplicate the meaning of a simple preposition, but often with a more formal tone.. For example, de acuerdo con ("in accordance with") is equivalent to según ("according to"). En dirección a ("in the direction of") is more ponderous than hacia ("toward"). The English counterpart of Spanish en may be either "on" or "in", while dentro de specifies "within". "Because of" is only one of several possible meanings of por, but por causa de conveys that meaning exclusively. In some cases the compound preposition denotes a literal spatial relationship, while the corresponding simple preposition expresses a figurative version of that relationship: thus, debajo de una mesa ("under a table") vs. bajo un régimen ("under a regime"), or delante de un edificio ("in front of a building") vs. ante un tribunal ("before a court of law").

The list of compound prepositions is much longer than that of the simple ones, and only some representative examples are listed here.

Spanish compound prepositions can be composed of:

• a preposition + noun + preposition:

  • por causa de / a causa de / en razón de = "because of"

  • sin perjuicio de = "notwithstanding", "without prejudice to"

  • con respecto a = "with respect to", "regarding"

  • a favor de = "in favour of"

  • en contra de = "against . . ." (e.g. en mi contra, en tu contra, en su contra, etc.)

  • en lugar de / en vez de = "instead of", "in lieu of"

  • etc.

• or of an adverb + preposition:

  • después de = "after"

  • debajo de = "beneath", "underneath"

  • antes de = "before" (i.e. "prior to")

  • junto a = "beside", "alongside"

  • delante de = "in front of" and "[positioned] before"

  • Etc.

All info on this page courtesy of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_prepositions