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The author supports the thesis that prepositions are an integral part of noun phrases and as such function primarily as grammaticalised exponents of the semantic category of ’space’, and - secondarily - of the semantic categories of ‘source’ and ‘goal’ of an action.

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The author argues that prepositions are an integral part of nominal phrases, and their graphic treatment as autonomous words is purely a lexicographic convention. They have maintained their primary meaning which is localization of material objects and events in space and time, and they subsequently evolved to also express localization in the social world and in the mental world. In a grammatical description of a language they should be discussed together with the semantic and formal structure of nominal phrases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]