Tributary Prepositions

(Under Development)


This category is for the group of prepositions in the inventory that are merely orthographic variants of some other preposition and can substitute for any sense of that preposition. This discussion of the tributary class of prepositions is based on an examination of the tributary senses identified in The Preposition Project (TPP) with the Pattern Dictionary of English Prepositions (PDEP). Since the senses for these prepositions correspond to the set of senses of the base preposition, the PDEP sense inventory for the base preposition have been imported into the database for these prepositions. To retain the fact that these prepositions are orthographic variants, the original TPP sense has been renumbered to be one more than the number of senses for the base preposition. The PDEP instances are tagged with the sense numbers of the base preposition. No instance is tagged with the sense corresponding to the tributary specification; thus, the count in the table below shows a count of 0 for this sense. Note that, while all senses of the base preposition have been imported into the sense inventory of the orthographic varient, it is unlikely that the distribution of the variants corresponds to the distribution of the base preposition. Also, the importing of the senses for the base preposition for all these variants may be viewed as artificially increasing the overall total of preposition senses; 241 senses have been imported for these variants. (See Preposition Classes for how this class relates to other classes.)

Category Types

The categories for the tributary prepositions will be found under the base senses. Here, we note the prepositions for which the base senses have been imported into the sense inventory for the orthographic variant.


Comments to: Ken Litkowski  Modified: February 14 2020 18:52:25.
PDEP Tributary Class (24 senses)
PrepositionSenseSubclassSrtypeSupersenseClassedCountPctNF
\'cept2(1)VariantAll_exceptYes0100.00.19
\'gainst12(1)VariantAll_againstYes0100.00.19
\'mongst5(1)VariantAll_amongstYes0100.00.19
\'pon23(1)VariantAll_onYes0100.00.19
afore5(1)VariantAll_beforeYes0100.00.19
agin12(1)VariantAll_againstYes0100.00.19
amidst3(1)VariantAll_amidYes0100.00.19
betwixt10(1)VariantAll_betweenYes0100.00.19
fore5(1)VariantAll_beforeYes0100.00.19
frae15(1)VariantAll_fromYes0100.00.19
neath7(1)VariantAll_beneathYes0100.00.19
nigh6(1)VariantAll_nearYes0100.00.19
o\'19(1)VariantAll_ofYes0100.00.00
o\'er17(1)VariantAll_overYes0100.00.00
outta10(1)VariantAll_out ofYes0100.00.19
outwith5(1)VariantAll_outsideYes0100.00.19
sans5(1)VariantAll_withoutYes0100.00.19
thro\'14(1)VariantAll_throughYes0100.00.02
thru14(1)VariantAll_throughYes0100.00.19
thwart3(1)VariantAll_athwartYes0100.00.19
till2(1)VariantAll_untilYes0100.00.41
toward6(1)VariantAll_towardsYes0100.00.58
upon23(1)VariantAll_onYes0100.011.33
while2(1)VariantAll_untilYes0100.00.19
Total      15.76