Ricerc@Sapienza

The so-called secondary prepositions mostly do not look like typical prepositions, having the form of an adverb, adjective, verb, noun or prepositional phrase. Secondary prepositions generally display a synchronic alternation between genitive and dative government. A great number of prepositions require the genitive but can also be constructed with the dative, mainly in oral and informal language. On the other hand, a small group of prepositions should govern only dative, but in everyday language genitive is not unusual. Finally, for some prepositions both cases are equally accepted in standard language. Furthermore, some secondary prepositions show a synchronic variation between preposing and postposing, the latter being unproductive and generally confined to specific contexts.