Prepositions

16.1 Morphology of Prepositions

Novegradian prepositions exhibit a number of sandhi-related phenomena, changes to the form of the preposition or its object as a result of the phonological shape of the object. This is to be distinguished from case governance, described in detail starting with Section 16.2, which is the phenomenon of prepositions forcing certain cases onto their objects. One example has already been discussed, the stress shift seen sometimes with the locative prepositions во vo “in” and на na “on” ¹ .

From a morphological/sandhi-based perspective, Novegradian prepositions can be divided into three subcategories, known as “three-form prepositions”, “two-form prepositions”, and “invariable prepositions”.

16.1.1 Three-Form Prepositions

Three prepositions in Novegradian have three forms: vowelled, unvowelled, and extended. These are в(о) v(o) “in”, с(о) s(o) “with”, and к(о) k(o) “toward”. The unvowelled forms are used before words beginning in a vowel or /j/ plus a vowel, and the fully-vowelled form in all other cases. A third form with /n/ (вон von, сон son, кон kon) is used with third person pronouns, as mentioned earlier, though it also appears before certain nouns beginning with /o/ or /e/ ² .

These prepositions also have a fourth, more archaic form, no longer used in speech, but still seen in poetry. If the following word begins with /j/ (unless it is a third person pronoun), the vowel of the prepositions becomes /e/: ве ve, се se, ке ke. This is the result of a sound change in the early language known as the vocalization of tense yers. These forms can still be seen in the modern language only in a few set phrases, such as ве ймѣно ve jmě́no “in the name [of]” and ве йстинѣ vé jstině “in truth, truthfully”. Note the spelling: initial /i/ is always respelt as Й in these expressions.

16.1.2 Two-Form Prepositions

All other unanalyzable prepositions that end in a vowel are two-form prepositions, a uniquely Novegradian innovation. Before nouns beginning with a vowel, they gain a final /β/ to prevent vowel hiatus: до войнѣ do voině́ “before the war”, дов атакѣ dov atákě “before the attack”.

The form with /β/ is used whenever the following word begins with a vowel, whether it is a noun or adjective. It even appears before vowels that force an allophonic glide, such as initial /e/ [je]; the glide remains in place. The only exception is with the third person pronouns, where the form without /β/ is always used: деля ево délia ievó “for him”, never **деляв ево déliav ievó.

The preposition противе prótive “against, in comparison with” historically always had the /β/ in its stem, but acquired its current quirky forms through partial analogy with these other two form prepositions. Unlike the others, it loses its final /e/ before words beginning with a vowel: против окну prótiv óknu “in comparison with the window”.

16.1.3 Invariable Prepositions

Invariable prepositions are prepositions that end in a consonant, or are still transparently analyzable. These do not show any significant allophony other than predictable phenomena such as voicing assimilation, which is never indicated in writing.

16.1.4 Sandhi in the Prepositional Object

When a three-form or two-form preposition is placed before certain nouns beginning with /e/ or /o/, the sandhi becomes much more involved. This only applies to nouns that in Old Novegradian began with /i/ or /u/, which later lowered to /e/ and /o/. Nouns that historically began with /e/ or /o/ are not affected.

In this situation, both three-form and two-form prepositions take their expanded forms, with -/n/ and -/β/ respectively. The first vowel of the object is then raised from /e/ to /i/ or from /o/ to /u/. These extended prepositions blocked the vowel lowering from ever occuring: оху óhu “ear” → вон ухесе von úhese “in the ear”; Еване Ieváne “Ieváne” → ов Ивана ov Ivána “at Ieváne[’s house]”; осту óstu “lip” → нав устѣх nav ustě́h “on the lips”, etc.

No change occurs if there is an adjective or other modifier between the preposition and noun, nor does it affect adjectives and other modifiers that themselves underwent this historical lowering.

16.2 Locative Prepositions

Locative prepositions in Novegradian have traditionally been divided into three classes, known as primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Primary locative prepositions include only во “in”, на “on”, по “along, by”, and па “by, in the immediate vicinity of”. They all require the locative case and can also be used as directionals (see following section). Во and на are not used in exactly the same way as in English. На “on” is generally used whenever an open, unenclosed space is involved (на паркѣ “in the park”, на Рошзиѣ “in Russia”) and во “in” when the space is enclosed or in reference to a city (во школѣ “in the school”, во Паришѣ “in Paris”).

Tertiary locative prepositions represent all others, most of which require the genitive. These do not have directional equivalents. They include вмести vmésti “between”, огољо ogóło “around”, and при pri “amid, among, during”.

Вмести often takes two arguments (“between X and Y”), so a note should be made about how to separate them. The conjunction и i “and” must be used to separate the two arguments, while со so is used to make compound argument. Therefore a phrase such as “between [X and Y] and [Z]” is rendered “вмести X.gen со Y.datins и Z.gen”.

Огољо has been mentioned earlier; when used with numbers, it means “approximately”. However, its usage here is adverbial, and so the number does not need to take the genitive case. When used in the spatial sense of “around”, it is prepositional, and requires the genitive case: огољо думу ogóło dúmu “around the house”.

16.3 Directional Prepositions

The directional prepositions indicate movement toward or away from a place. The primary locative prepositions can be made directional by simply changing their object from the locative case to the lative: во “into”, на “onto”, по “after” (in order, not time), па “into the vicinity of”.

For secondary locative prepositions, there are two options. For the nominal or “noun-like” prepositions, the case of the nominal element of the preposition is changed. For the unanalyzable ones, there is either no change (other than requiring the lative or dative/instrumental case for the object) or a distinct preposition is used.

Movement away is handled with the three prepositions зе ze “from”, со so “from [on top of]”, and од od “away from”, which are the counterparts of во, на, and по/па/о, respectively. The -d form prepositions take a prefixed зе-: зезад zezád “from behind”, зенад zenád “from over”, зебод zebód “from under”. **Зепред is not used. Вон and нутрин become суон suon “from outside” and снутри snutrí “from inside”, based on со rather than зе. Other noun-like prepositions require periphrastic constructions, although “left” and “right” may use the prepositionalized adverbs used for the locative and other directional forms (слѣва/соправа). All of the above require the genitive case.

16.4 Temporal Prepositions

Novegradian recycles spatial prepositions for temporal functions. The most commonly used temporal prepositions are до do + gen “until”, за za + datins “after”, пред pred + datins “before”, трес tres + acc “within” (note the form за instead of зад). Less common ones include:

• во vo + acc “in, during” (when referring to a specific event occuring within a long period of time; for example, “X happened during the war”)
• за za + acc “over, in”
• ко ko + datins “by”
• по po + datins “during” (when referring to a specific event occuring within a short period of time; for example, “X happened during the flight”)
• по po + loc “upon” (e.g., “upon completion”)
• при pri + loc “in, during, throughout” (when referring to a span of time; for example, “during his rule the country entered a time of prosperity”)

При pri + loc can also be “during the time of”, an expression particularly common in describing rulers: при Петрѣ пирвѣѣм pri Pétrě Pírvěiěm “during the reign of Peter I”.

Most other concepts require periphrastic constructions, such as со ших врѣмен so śíh vrěmén + gen “since”, literally “from the times of”, or the more formal variant со тада врѣмена so tadá vrě́mena + gen “from such a time of”.

See Section 12.3 “The Accusative Case” for more information and examples of the use of the accusative case in time expressions.

16.5 The Distributive По

The preposition по po is also used in distributive expressions, a construction common in each of the Slavic languages in some form or another. In Novegradian, the по distributive is difficult to classify; it is a prepositional phrase that acts as a noun and displays some unusual internal agreement.

The basic meaning of this construction is “each”, indicating that the noun within it is to be multipied rather than divided among multiple groups. For example, a sentence such as “The ten students received 50 marks” in Novegradian would mean that the 50 marks were divided among the ten students, whereas “The ten students received ‘по’ 50 marks” indicates that each received 50.

The construction is formed by placing the noun to be distributed in the dative/instrumental case after the preposition по. However, if the noun is quantified by any number other than “one” (or 21, 31, 41, 101, etc), the numeral instead must be in the accusative case and the noun regularly in the count form or genitive.

The distributive по phrase may act as either the subject or the direct object of a verb. As the direct object, it indicates that each subject is acting on that amount of objects. If the subject of a transitive verb is modified by the adjective кожне kóźne “each, every”, the direct object will almost always be a по distributive.

When acting as a subject, the по phrase is forced after the verb; it may not appear sentence-initially. The verb always shows neuter, third person singular agreement.

The expression по колкѣ? po kólkě? is the interrogative form for “how many each?”. Note that this expression can come sentence-initially.

16.6 Stress Shifts in Prepositional Phrases

In Novegradian prepositions are generally unstressed, merging into the stress system of whatever word follows it. However, for certain nouns, stress in a prepositional phrase actually shifts off the noun and onto the preposition: на стољен ná stołen “onto the table”, со дружам só druźam “with friends”, etc.

For this shift to take place, the following conditions must be true:

• The preposition must be monosyllabic and end in a vowel (на, ко, со, во, про, до, зе, etc)
• The noun stem must be monosyllabic
• The noun stem cannot end in a consonant cluster (so на картѣ na kártě “on a map”, since the stem is *kart-)
• The noun cannot be a recent loan; it must be well established
• The noun cannot begin in a vowel, /j/, or /w/ (i.e., anything that would cause prepositions such as во “in” to reduce to в or expand with -n or -v)
• The noun cannot be second, fifth, or sixth declension

This shift only occurs when the noun immediately follows the preposition. Any intervening adjective, modifier, or quantifier will prevent the stress shift, leaving the preposition unstressed.

In the locative case, the stress shift will cause the locative case ending to drop entirely: во дум vó dum “in a house”.

16.7 “For”

There are three Novegradian equivalents of “for” not yet discussed. The dative/instumental case alone and temporal senses of “for” were discussed earlier. The remaining constructions are деля délia + gen, за za + acc, and за za + datins.

Деля délia marks whom an action benefits, and is the most frequently used of these three.

За za with the accusative case marks an exchange of some sort.

“For” in the sense of “to get” (i.e., purpose or end) is expressed using за za and the dative/instrumental case. This can also be used when “for” is functioning as a mild sort of “because of”.

16.8 “Along”

There are three constructions that can be used to mean “along”.

По po + loc and при pri + loc are used in the same way as the derivational equivalents ⁴ . По is used to mean along some sort of linear path, such as a road, pathway, or river. При is used to means along a coastline. Note, however, that you say на берегѣ na béregě “along the coast” (with “on”), but прив ежерѣ priv iéźerě “along the lake[shore]”. In other words, the preposition при is only used when its object is an actual body of water.

По po + datins is used to mean “along” (in the temporal sense) or “during” when its object is some sort of reference to travelling: по пантем po pantém “along the way”, по полетем po póletem “along the flight”.

16.9 “Before” and “After”

The prepositions пред pred + datins and до do + gen both translate as “before”. However, до refers to a period of time stretching from some moment in the past to (but not including) the reference point, while пред can refer to any period of time before the reference point. In addition, до emphasizes that the action does not continue after the reference point, while пред makes no statement regarding this. For example, given a sentence such as “There were many protests before the war”, with пред this means there were a number of protests that took place at some point before the war began and they may or may not have continued after the war began; with до, this means there was a period of protesting that ended when the war began.

Due to the strong implication of lack of continuation that до gives, it is almost always used to mean “before” when something is being contrasted to what happens after, e.g., до войнѣ do voině́ “before the war [as opposed to after it]”.

The prepositions за za + datins and ценайсо cenáiso + datins both mean “after”, the distinction being the same as between пред and до. Ценайсо refers to a period beginning at the reference point and stretching into the future, while за simply refers to any period of time after the reference point (and may even include events taking place before the reference point).

16.10 Various Uses of Во

The preposition во vo + loc, in addition to its basic meaning “in”, has a number of more idiomatic meanings as well.

This construction may broadly mean “covered in”. It is impossible to provide an all-encompassing gloss as this often is translated into English using a variety of different constructions.

The expression во шем vo śém “in this/that” can also mean “because of that” (referring to a previous statement) as well as “responsible/accountable for that”. These idioms cannot take other nominal arguments, though the conjunction во том-це vo tóm-ce “responsible for ensuring that” can be used to elaborate on what one is responsible for.

16.11 Alienable and Inalienable “With” and “Without”

Novegradian has two words that translate as “with”, со so + datins and ими imí + acc, and two as “without”, бес bes + gen and ними nimí + gen. The difference has to do with the nature of the possession involved.

Ими imí “with” and ними nimí “without” represent alienable possession, that is, possession of a temporary nature that generally involves physically carrying an item. The possessor and possessed item are viewed as strongly distinct and somewhat distanced from one another. For this reason, ими is frequently translated as “[while] taking along” and ними as “[while] not taking”. Ними can also mean “despite not having”.

Ими also has the additional function of indicating the reason for an action when that reason is an abstract noun, such as ими бланде imí blánde “by mistake” or ими глупости imí glúposti “out of stupidity”.

Со so “with” and бес bes “without” indicate inalienable possession, when the possessor and possessed item are inseparable or closely associated. They also indicate accompaniment, and thus are required whenever their objects are animate.

Со with the dative-instrumental case also have a number of other functions, such as indicating compound noun phrases, but these are not relevant here.

16.12 При

При pri is perhaps the most difficult preposition to explain for speakers of English. It has a number of different meanings, all broadly signifying “connected to”.

• by, near, at, along:
  при сотокѣ рѣк pri sótokě rěk
    “at the confluence of the rivers”
• of (in the names of battles and certain other events):
  битуа при Шелони bítua pri Śeloní
    “battle of Śelóni”
  договоре при Паришѣ dogovóre pri Paríśě
    “Treaty of Paris”
• under (organizations):
  консле при МНД kónsle pri MND
    “department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs”
• in the presence of:
  при нем pri ném
    “in his presence”
  при сугьи pri súgji
    “before the judge”
• in the time of, under:
  при царѣ Мециславѣ pri cárě Mecislávě
    “under Tsar Mecislau”
  при вѣкѣ Римескѣе емпирин pri věkě Rimeskěie iempírin
    “in the time of the Roman Empire”
• at (some level):
  при тихѣ теплотѣ pri tíhě teplótě
    “at room temperature”
  прив уравеньи мора priv uravenjí móra
    “at sea level”
• at (an event as a specific point in time):
  при россуѣтѣ pri róssuětě
    “at sunrise”
  при пирвѣ снѣгѣ pri pírvě sně́gě
    “at the first snow”
• with, for (an abstract quality):
  при ево стравиях pri ievó stravijáh
    “with his health (...he should be more careful)”
  при тадѣ вѣденьѣ pri tadě́ vědénjě
    “for such knowledge (...he couldn’t answer easy questions)”

При may also be used with the lative case when the verb is indicating connecting two things together:

16.13 Table of Prepositions

Following is a comprehensive table of Novegradian prepositions.