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With minimal research online one can easily find that a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and an object. Most online and paper resources will describe a preposition as a word that describes the relationship between two nouns/noun phrases.

For example

The cat is behind the table.

OR

The cat behind the table was eating the leftovers.

I know that you refer to behind as the preposition, the table as the object of the preposition, but am confused as to if there is a word to describe the relationship between behind and the cat. I am looking for a word for that specific relationship, not simply that in the first example, the cat is the subject of the sentence.

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  • Wouldn't the object of the preposition be qualifying the subject of the preposition?
    – Davo
    Commented Nov 6, 2017 at 14:31
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    No: in your first example, the PP serves as a locative complement of "be", not "the cat" -- that is the syntactic relationship here. The PP does of course 'refer' to the subject "the cat", i.e. it has subject orientation, but that is a semantic relationship. In your second example, the PP is a modifier of "cat" -- that is the syntactic relationship here. Btw, prepositions take a few kinds of dependents as complement, not just objects, for example AdvPs, PPs and subordinate clauses.
    – BillJ
    Commented Nov 6, 2017 at 14:32
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    Generally there is no special word for a noun modified by a prepositional phrase, just as there is no special word for a noun modified by an adjective. It's just modification (though one can be more specific about what kind of modification, but that's more semantic than grammatical).
    – John Lawler
    Commented May 28, 2023 at 18:40
  • Kind of a duplicate for Word for something that is modified: answers include modificand, head, and antecedent.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Oct 21 at 11:12

2 Answers 2

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What does one call the noun that a preposition relates to its object?

There is no word for this as in "The cat is behind the table", "the cat" is entirely and completely independent of the preposition "behind." There is no relation.

The preposition is related only to its object.

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BillJ commented:

[I]n your first example, the PP serves as a locative complement of "be", not "the cat" -- that is the syntactic relationship here. The PP does of course 'refer' to the subject "the cat", i.e. it has subject orientation, but that is a semantic relationship. In your second example, the PP is a modifier of "cat" -- that is the syntactic relationship here. Btw, prepositions take a few kinds of dependents as complement, not just objects, for example AdvPs, PPs and subordinate clauses

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