The Problem of 'Meaning of Prepositions' in the Arabic Language

The grammarians of the Arabic language considered the noun and verb to be meaningful on their own, and the prepositions (ḥurūf al-maʿânî/meaning letters) as meaningless language units when they were alone in the traditional word classification. This approach is generally accepted in many languages, including Turkish. According to this, prepositions are words that have no meaning on their own and undertake grammatical tasks. However, contrary to this general opinion, some Arab linguists claimed that prepositions are meaningful when they are alone. Leaving aside the view that the preposition is meaningful on its own, both Arab and Turkish linguists and modern linguists stated that the preposition would not gain meaning without usage/context. Prepositions that are seen as meaningless/empty words cannot gain any meaning unless they enter the syntax. In fact, this condition for prepositions also applies to other types of words (noun, verb). In this study, the evaluations of the Arabic syntaxists on whether the preposition is a meaningful or meaningless language element are discussed. In addition, it is also mentioned how this issue is approached in Turkish and modern linguistics. The issue of whether the preposition shows a meaning when it is alone has been discussed especially through the definition of the preposition by linguists.