Prepositions precede their complements. Some examples, given in (68), also show that prepositional phrases can perform various semantic functions.

Table 5 provides an alphabetical list of simple prepositions that occur frequently in everyday speech and it also indicates what semantic functions the PPs headed by these prepositions can perform; these three semantic functions will be the topic of Section 32.3. Note that the set of functional prepositions, i.e. “semantically vacuous” uses of the prepositions heading PP-complements like op zijn vader in Jan wacht op zijn vaderJan is waiting for his father, are not subsumed under the three semantic functions distinguished in Table 5.

preposition	spatial	temporal	other	remarks
aan ‘on’	+
achter ‘behind’	+
alvorens ‘before’		+		introduces infinitival clauses
beneden ‘below’	+			see remark below the table
bij ‘near/close to’	+	+
binnen ‘inside/within’	+	+
boven ‘above’	+
buiten ‘outside’	+
dankzij ‘thanks to’			+
door ‘through/by’	+	+	+	causative/passive by-phrase
gedurende ‘during’		+
gezien ‘in view of’			+
halverwege ‘halfway’	+	+
in ‘in(to)/within’	+	+
langs ‘along’	+
met ‘during/with’		+	+	instrumental/comitative
na ‘after’		+
naar ‘towards’	+
naast ‘next to’	+
namens ‘on behalf of’			+
om ‘around/at’	+	+	+	purpose
omstreeks ‘around’		+
ondanks ‘despite’			+	concession
onder ‘under’	+
ongeacht ‘regardless of’			+
op ‘on(to)/at’	+	+
over ‘across/in’	+	+
per ‘as of/by’		+	+	see remark below the table
rond ‘around’	+	+
sinds ‘since’		+
tegen ‘against/towards’	+	+
tegenover ‘across’	+
tijdens ‘during’		+
tot (en met) ‘until’	+	+
tussen ‘between’	+	+
uit ‘out (of)’	+
van ‘from’	+
vanaf ‘from’	+	+
vanuit ‘from out of’	+
vanwege ‘because of’			+
via ‘via’	+
volgens ‘according to’			+
voor ‘in front of/before’	+	+
voorbij ‘past’	+
wegens ‘because of’			+
zonder ‘without’			+

Note that the preposition beneden ‘below’ has more or less the same meaning as onder ‘under’, but seems to be restricted to collocations like beneden de grote rivierenbelow the big rivers (i.e. the southern part of the Netherlands), beneden de zes jaarunder six years of age, beneden de vereisten/verwachting blijvento fall short of requirements/ expectations and beneden mijn waardigheidbeneath my dignity. It is also used in nautical jargon as in beneden de windleeward. The temporal use of the preposition per ‘as of/by’ is formal; the more colloquial form corresponding to this preposition is vanaf ‘from’. The preposition per is, however, common in the more or less fixed combinations in (69). The complement of per usually refers to a means of transport, like postmail and autocar in (69a&b), or a measure noun phrase, like kilokilogram or dozijndozen in (69c).

Unlike the prepositions in Table 5, the prepositions in Table 6 are restricted to formal/official and written language. Because these prepositions will not play an important role in what follows, we will give an example of each of them. Observe that many of these prepositions have developed from a verbal source.

preposition	examples
aangaande	aangaande deze zaak ‘regarding this case’
behoudens	behoudens goedkeuring door ... ‘subject to ...ʼs approval’
benevens	benevens een vergoeding voor ‘besides an allowance for’
betreffende	betreffende deze zaak ‘regarding this affair’
bezijden	bezijden de waarheid ‘beside the truth’
blijkens	blijkens zijn rapport ‘according to his report’
gehoord	gehoord de commissie ‘after hearing the commission’
getuige	getuige het feit dat ... ‘witness the fact that ...’
hangende	hangende het onderzoek ‘pending (the) investigation
ingevolge	ingevolge artikel 16 ‘pursuant to article 16’
inzake	inzake uw opmerking ‘concerning your remark’
jegens	jegens uw naaste ‘towards your fellow human being’
krachtens	krachtens artikel 16 ‘under article 16’
niettegenstaande	niettegenstaande het feit dat ... ‘notwithstanding (the fact) that...’
middels	middels deze brief ‘by means of this letter’
omtrent	omtrent deze tijd ‘by this time’
onverminderd	onverminderd het bepaalde in ... ‘without prejudice to the provisions in ...’
overeenkomstig	overeenkomstig de afspraak ‘in accordance with the agreement’
sedert	sedert haar overlijden ‘since her decease’
staande	staande de vergadering ‘during the meeting’
te	te Amsterdam ‘in/at Amsterdam’; te negen uur ‘at 9 oʼclock’
teneinde	teneinde + infinitival clause ‘in order to ...’
trots	trots de regen ‘despite the rain’

Other prepositions that are mainly confined to official and juridical language are Latin loanwords such as: à, ad, conform, contra, circa, cum, de, ex, pro, qua and versus. The only Latin preposition that really made its way into colloquial speech is the spatial preposition via in Table 5. Borrowings from French are inclusiefincluding/with and exclusiefexcluding/without: note that these items are classified as adverbs in the Van Dale dictionary, probably because of their adjective-like morphological composition. However, the fact that they precede their nominal complement btwVAT and verzendkosten in (70) shows that they behave like prepositions in these examples, given that Section has shown that adjectives always follow their nominal complement. The fact that the phrases inclusief btw/exclusief verzendkostenshipping cost must follow the noun they modify also suggests that they are prepositional, because attributive adjectives usually precede the noun: cf. een inclusieve samenlevingan inclusive society.

Further, archaic prepositions worth mentioning are lastenson the account of, luidensaccording to, nevenson the side of, nopensabout. Although generally used as a temporal preposition, omtrent can occasionally also be used as a spatial preposition meaning “near” or be used in other functions: cf. omtrent de vijftig euroabout 50 euros and omtrent de moordregarding the murder.