This chapter presents the patterns of composition in Slavic languages. In Slavic, most compounds are nouns (like čel-o-věkъ) and adjectives (like *bos-o-nògъ). Verbal compounds (like blag-o-sloviti ‘to bless’) are less frequent and less productive (as is generally the case in Indo-European languages). The author reviews patterns and phenomena of nominal, adjectival, adverbial, verbal, pronominal, and numeral composition.

The meanings and grammatical features of Chinese prepositions are introduced in this chapter. The usages and meanings of prepositions in pre-verbal or postverbal positions are differentiated. Special attention is paid to distinguishing Chinese verbs from prepositions, which are often referred to as co-verbs.

Germanic languages heavily rely on prepositions and particles (‘Ps’) for describing places and paths. This category P might be considered as a small class of minor function words, but this chapter demonstrates the richness and variety of this category on the basis of Dutch, English, and German data, focusing on two of their aspects that have not received much attention in the literature: transitivity and complexity. Given that Ps are always based on a spatial relation (between a figure and a ground), it is surprising to see that they can often be used, under specific semantic conditions, without a syntactic object that expresses the ground, even as prepositions. A close look at the variation in formal complexity of Ps shows the same semantic conditions at work, revealing a basic gradient of meaning that cross-cuts the distinction between places and paths and prepositions and particles.