2111: Inconsistency of Prepositions Sep 25, 2020

Prepositions are considered to be in a closed lexical class, which essentially means it's very difficult to create new ones, unlike with nouns and verbs for which new words are created daily. This is because they indicate grammar more than meaning. Indeed, even though some prepositions like 'up', 'down', or 'on' and 'off' which seemingly have a consistent meaning aren't so consistent, such as how different dialects will say either "in line" or "on line" to refer to cueing. Another humorous example can be seen with

"The alarm went off, so I turned it off"*

This is also not to mention that translating prepositions is particularly difficult, because each holds so many varied meanings that the relations are not always one-to-one.

*(technically this is post-positive but they are classes as prepositions)

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