WORD CLASS: PREPOSITIONS

1. Prepositions are used to set relationship with semantic features (direction, place, time, topic, reason, etc.) or just the syntactic relationship between the verb and its complements. Catalan, like all Romance languages (except Romanian) does not possess case mark for nouns, which forces it to express syntactic relationships by means of prepositions.

2. Most prepositions may have more than one value, not only semantic, but also syntactic, as it can be seen in the following examples referring to the preposition a:

> Direction

vaig al mercat	I’m going to the market
vaig a la platja	I’m going to the beach

> Place

viuen a Roma	they live in Rome
se m’ha oblidat al carrer	I’ve forgotten it on the street

> Indirect object

el gos lladra a tothom	the dog barks at everybody
telefona al teu germà	make a call to your brother

> Time

al gener tindrem un fill	next January we’ll have a baby
dinarem a tres quarts de dues	we’ll have lunch at a quarter to two

> Prepositional regime

aquesta sopa sardina	this soup tastes like sardines
el document es refereix a vostè	the document refers to you

3. One-word prepositions cohabit with compound prepositions, i.e., word clusters working out as prepositions:

al voltant de la casa hi ha un jardí	there’s a garden around the house
a partir de les nou, la biblioteca està tancada	from nine on, the library is closed
de dilluns ençà no tenim aigua	we’ve been without water since last Monday
se n’han anat cap al nord	they’ve left northwards

4. This is a basic list of Catalan prepositions with their English equivalents

PREP.	VALUE	EXAMPLE	EQUIVALENT
a	place	sóc a casa	I’m home
	direction	anem a la platja	let’s go to the beach
	indirect object	dona les claus a la Júlia	give the keys to Julia
	regime object	em refereixo al quadre	I’m referring to the picture
	time	ens veiem a les quatre	we’ll meet up at four
amb	means	ho faig amb les mans	I do it with my hands
	company	visc amb la meva xicota	I live with my girlfriend
	means of transport	amb l’autobús	by bus
cap a	direction	cap allà	let’s go that way
	approximation	vindrà cap a les dues	he’ll come up at about two
de	genitive	el quadern del Joan	John’s notebook
	origin	venim de la platja	we’re coming from the beach
		són de Dinamarca	they come from Denmark
	stuff	els mobles són de fusta	the furniture is made up of wood
	time	de petit, encara no parlava alemany	as a child, I didn’t speak German yet
	partitive structures	vols un tros de pa?	do you want a piece of bread?
		d’amics, en tenim molts	we’ve got a lot of friends
	starting point	de casa meva a l’oficina hi ha 10 km	my house is 10 km away from my office
	topic	parlàvem de tu	we were talking about you
contra	opposition	estem contra la violència	we are against violence
de... ençà	starting point	no treballo de l’any 2005 ençà	I don’t work since 2005
en	place	en el bany	in the bathroom
		en aquestes circumstàncies	under these circumstances
	way	en teoria	theoretically
	mode	en bona forma	in good shape
		en condicions	in good conditions
	regime object	parlar en francès	to speak in French
		basar-se en	to be based on
entre	place, time	entre tots dos ho farem	we’ll do it between you and me (> together)
fins (a)	goal, limit	no sortiré fins diumenge	I won’t go out until Sunday
per (a)	goal	he comprat un regal per a tu	I’ve bought a present for you
	finality, usually with infinitive	és bon moment per comprar cases	it’s a good moment to buy houses
	direction	per ací	this way
	cause	el critiquen pel seu mode de vida	he’s criticised because of his way of life
	movement through	hem de passar per França	we must go along France
sense	lack	han vingut sense maletes	they’ve come without their suitcases