Category talk:English postpositions

Deletion debate

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Category:English postpositions

This empty category seems to be the result of some dirigiste effort at uniformity associated with templates such as {{poscatboiler}} etc. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:44, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, although we may not want "Postposition" as a POS header for English (per this dicussion), it seems like the category can still add some value, if supplied with tenants such as notwithstanding. Keep, or alternatively move to Category:English ambipositions. -- Visviva 17:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps. But I am at a loss how to remove it from the text of Category:English parts of speech, which is controlled by the non-transparent logic of {{poscatboiler}}. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 17:12, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAICT it should be automatic. See template:categorytree/subcatlist.​—msh210℠ 17:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? I don't really grok Template. What if we keep the category, but don't want to show it as a part of speech in the category? Can we not have one without the other? How about dumping {{poscatboiler}} then? Or did I miss a vote on that? DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Can't think of a real reason to delete it. Is there any reason not to keep the category, even if it just has one or two articles in it, which are nevertheless correct? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:01, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

If its mere existence leads to the automatic creation of error in a page containing {{poscatboiler}}, then either it goes or {{poscatboiler}} (as currently written) does at Category:English parts of speech. I am indifferent as to which. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:16, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. (I thought you wanted to know if it'd be removed from English POSes' list if deleted, which, yes, it would, automatically, AFAICT.) It seems it can be removed from English POSes' list if not deleted by removing |ROOT/sub12=postposition from template:poscatboiler/theList. But it would still be categorized in English POSes, and link thereto atop its own page. To get rid of those without doing the same for every language would require more template-fu than I have.​—msh210℠ 20:09, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Can someone give me a plausible reason to delete this? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:20, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Our definition of postposition seems to imply that they don't exist in English; if true, this should be deleted. If false, could someone de-specify the definition and add an example or two to the category. Conrad.Irwin 15:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe notwithstanding was in this category, but was removed. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Most English reference grammars don't use the term, but often point out that preposition in English is a misnomer insofar as it is applied to terms like notwithstanding, which can appear either before and after its noun, and apart and aside when not followed by a PP headed by "from". Some put ago and on (in the sense of "following" or "after") in the same category. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 17:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

User:Msh210/Sandbox#or:_English_adjectives_frequently_used_postpositively.​—msh210℠ 17:51, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Judging from the use of the term in the context of the language pages it seems intended to reflect a grammatical category for a type of function word that seems usually to function like prepositions. I don't think that anyone would remove an English word from the English adjective class merely because it was used usually or always after the noun it modifies.

Because this might be a useful class in English, albeit in a sense different from its purported sense in the implicit universal grammar sense it was being imposed here, I have removed {{poscatboiler}} from Category:English parts of speech and replaced it with corrected and augmented text. The decision to keep it or not need not be influenced by the peripheral issue of that template family. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Kept, note this was emptied at one point, so whatever was in it should go back there (unless incorrect, of course). Mglovesfun (talk) 10:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

"thereafter"?

This is listed as an adverb, but can it also be a postposition, as in "five years thereafter". Mark314159 (talk) 19:50, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

No, it's still an adverb. "Five years thereafter" means "thereafter by five years", just like "five years later", "five years earlier", etc. This is different from "five years ago", where "ago" is a postposition because it can't be used on its own. "He died thereafter" works, but not *"He died ago". 2003:E5:EF08:5924:1F1:348D:D9AF:CCEE 14:05, 5 November 2020 (UTC)