Prepositions and their Grammar in Maltese

该项目旨在全面描述马耳他语介词系统。在现存的关于马耳他语结构的文献中，介词并不是关注的焦点。因此，对它们的语法和功能领域的许多方面所知相对较少。专家们对马耳他语介词的数量还没有达成共识。文献中提出的介词数量在17到44个之间波动。对自20世纪30年代以来发表的先前提案的回顾表明，对于什么资格作为介词存在分歧。将适当介词与其他词类（如副词）区分开来的问题就出现了。介词的二元序列的可能性提出了确定两个介词之间的句法关系的一般问题。对于介词和不同补语的相互作用，以及同义介词（至少是表面上的）域的划分，人们都没有给予足够的重视。为了充分描述马耳他语介词的共时系统性，该项目旨在提供一本马耳他语介词手册，其中包括五章，即(a)一般介绍，(B)与马耳他语介词相关的结构和功能现象的充分说明的注释字典，(C)从字典中描述的单个介词的属性得出的语法。(D)马耳他事实的类型学评价，以及(E)关于马耳他发现对介词一般理论的影响的一般结论。对于词典和语法来说，从音系、词法、句法到语义学的所有层次都被仔细审查。在(B)和(C)部分专门提出的主题中，一方面存在与地名补语结合省略空间介词如fi ‘in’的可能性，另一方面存在协调下的等差p缺失的差异应用。该项目从马耳他语介词系统可以以连续体或径向类别的形式捕获的假设开始。为了验证这一假设的可行性，本文采用了语言现象的原型方法。其方法论是严格定性的，并受到语言学基础理论的影响。更一般地说，该项目位于功能类型学的框架中。马耳他的数据仅从共时角度进行分析。实证基础是由规模为2.5亿字的马尔蒂语料库提供的。该项目的结果将在一个开放获取出版物中提供。该项目将为马耳他的学生、对抗系统专家和类型学家提供宝贵的新数据，供他们未来的研究参考。

The project seeks to describe the system of Maltese prepositions comprehensively. In the extant literature on Maltese language structures prepositions are not in the focus of interest. Thus relatively little is known about many aspects of their grammar and functional domain. There is as yet no consensus among the specialists about the size of the inventory of Maltese prepositions. The counts put forward in the literature oscillate between 17 and 44 prepositions. A review of previous proposals published since the 1930s reveals that there is disagreement as to what qualifies as a preposition. Difficulties arise in connection with the distinction of proper prepositions from other word classes such as adverbs. The possibility to have binary sequences of prepositions poses the general problem of determining the syntactic relation between the two prepositions. Only insufficient attention, if at all, has been payed not only to the interaction of prepositions and different classes of complements but also to the delimitation of the domains of (at least superficially) synonymous prepositions. To provide an adequate description of the synchronic systematicity of Maltese prepositions, the project aims at providing a handbook of Maltese prepositions which comprises five chapters, namely (A) a general introduction, (B) a commented dictionary with ample illustration of structural and functional phenomena associated with Maltese prepositions, (C) a grammar that results from the properties of the individual prepositions described in the dictionary, (D) the typological evaluation of the Maltese facts, and (E) the general conclusions as to the bearing the Maltese findings have on the general theory of prepositions. For the dictionary and the grammar, all levels from phonology via morphology and syntax to semantics are scrutinized. Among the topics which are specifically raised in Parts (B) and (C), there is, on the one hand, the possibility of dropping spatial prepositions like fi 'in' in combination with a toponymic complement and, on the other hand, the differential application of Equi-P-deletion under coordination. The project starts from the assumption that the system of Maltese prepositions can be captured in the format of a continuum or a radial category. To check the tenability of this working hypothesis the principles of the prototype approach to linguistic phenomena are adopted. The methodology is strictly qualitative and is indebted to Basic Linguistic Theory. More generally the project is situated in the framework of functional typology. The Maltese data are analysed exclusively from the synchronic perspective. The empirical foundation is provided by the Korpus Malti with a size of 250 million words. The results of this project will be made available in an open access publication. The project will provide students of Maltese, experts of adpositional systems, and typologists with valuable new data to be taken into account in their future research.