Out of

Hi,

What's your definition of a composite preposition?

Best wishes, Clive

e.g.

in front of

in back of

into

onto

toward

Mind, some would say that a compound preposition ends in a preposition and a composite preposition ends in a noun.

A strangely parallel event, in another universe.

MrP

And there's quite a lot of parallel Houdini stuff going on in this and other universes.

Yeah, MrP, how would you answer the thread question here?

I have seen this called a multiword (multi-word) preposition. Multi-word lexemes exist for all classes of words, forming an important extension and continuation of single-word items.
Some linguists (Quirk) choose to call multiword prepositions differently, namely "prepositional phrase" and, on one occasion, "complex preposition", e.g. except for, with the exception of, apart from,
etc.

Thanks, AlpheccaStars. Am I right in thinking that not many grammars deal with such forms?

< Multi-word lexemes exist for all classes of words, forming an important extension and continuation of single-word items.>

Yes, I agree, and speaking of such, I've also heard the term "compound conjunctions" used, but not by many. Examples would be as soon as, so that, in order to.

See here:

AnonymousWhy, in the ESL world, is so little attention given to such forms?

Helloooo? ESL = "English as a Second Language", not "English for Super-advanced obsessed Linguists who deal with the most extreme theoretical stuff that is so extreme and theoretical that in the end they don't even know what they are talking about and they lose their minds and they pul