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above shows a different relation revealing thus its individual
lexical meaning.
It is much more difficult to define lexical meaning of a
preposition than that of a noun or an adjective, because
prepositions usually have very general, abstract meanings.
It is necessary to make some remarks regarding the
classification of prepositions according to their meaning into
those of place, direction, time, etc. When we say that the
prepositions at or by have local meanings in at window, by the
window, and temporal meanings in at 6 o'clock, by 6 o'clock we
simply add the meanings of the neighbouring words to those of
prepositions. Originally, a preposition like in is supposed to have
had a concrete local meaning. But at present in is used with such
a variety of words that it has a very vague and general meaning,
something like "inside some sphere". That sphere may be local as
in Kyiv, temporal, as in January, abstract as in love, in thought,
etc.
Prepositions like in, at, on, by, etc. are used with all kinds
of nouns, so that the local, temporal and other meanings of the
prepositional construction do not depend on the preposition, but
on the noun. Such prepositions may be called general. There are
some other prepositions which may be called special. They are
used chiefly with nouns of certain meaning. For instance, the
preposition till can be used with nouns like midnight, dawn, time,
but not with window, town, place and the like. That shows that till
has acquired a temporal meaning. The causal meaning of the
special preposition because of is so strong that it determines the
meaning of the prepositional construction irrespective of the
noun. Compare: because of the time (place, love, John).
The combinability of a preposition is rather peculiar. As a
rule, it is followed by a noun or a noun equivalent which it is
closely connected with. At the same time it is associated with
some preceding notional word belonging to nearly any part of
speech. We may speak of stable right-hand connections and

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