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Tkacka15 Posted 7 years ago
Grammar

Five years hence

five years hence

Is "hence" a postposition in the phrase above? If so, is "hence" a head of that phrase and "five years" its dependent?

  

Top answer

Yes, "hence" is a preposition but it's not head of "five years hence" "Five years hence" is an NP with "years" as head and "hence" as its complement. Note that "hence" is one of a number of prepositions that cannot take an NP complement. Incidentally, there's no need to use the term "postposition', since there is no established term 'postposition phrase'.

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1 Answers
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Yes, "hence" is a preposition but it's not head of "five years hence"

"Five years hence" is an NP with "years" as head and "hence" as its complement.

Note that "hence" is one of a number of prepositions that cannot take an NP complement.

Incidentally, there's no need to use the term "postposition', since there is no established term 'postposition phrase'. The term 'preposit