The first group of postpositions is characterized by the fact that the interior of the reference object is part of the implied path. The postpositional phrases headed by in and binnen in (262a) express that the reference object is the endpoint of the path; however, the starting point is exterior to the reference object. The examples in (262b&c) show that in can but binnen cannot be used when the postpositional phrase has an extent reading or functions as a modifier of a noun phrase.

The postpositional phrase headed by uit in (263) expresses that the reference object is the starting point of the path, but the endpoint is outside it. Note that binnen in (262a) can be used as a postposition in predicatively used postpositional phrases, while its antonym buiten in (263a) cannot.

Finally, the postpositional phrase headed by door in (264) expresses that the reference object is a subpart of the path: both the starting point and the endpoint of the path are exterior to it. Recall that the preposition door can also be used in directional constructions; cf. the discussion of (243) and (244) in Section 32.3.1.2, sub III, for the difference between the two directional uses of door.

The claim that in and binnen take the interior of the reference object as the endpoint of the implied path is supported by the fact that (262a) entails that Jan is in town after the completion of the event; the symbol ⊫ indicates that the intended entailment is valid. The claim that uit denotes a path with an endpoint exterior to the reference object is supported by the fact that we can infer from (263a) that Jan is out of town after the completion of the event. Note in passing that we cannot substitute uit for buiten in (265b'), which indicates that there is no longer any contact between the located and the reference object after the completion of the event; cf. the discussion of example (236).

The postpositions in and binnen in (262a) seem to be more or less equivalent. However, they differ in that the latter requires the located object to end up in a position within the reference object, whereas the former does not. This is clear from the fact that binnen cannot be used in (266a): the implication is that some part of the nail has not entered the wall. Example (266b) shows that the postposition uitout of does not require the located object to be (completely) removed from the reference object. This shows that in this respect the postpositions behave similarly to the corresponding prepositions; cf. the discussion of Figure 23 and Figure 25 in Section 32.3.1.2, sub IIIB.

The second group of postpositions is characterized by the fact that the path runs along the surface of the reference object. The postposition oponto indicates that the endpoint but not the starting point of the path is situated on the reference object, while affrom indicates that the starting point but not the endpoint of the path is situated on the reference object. In the case of over neither the starting point nor the endpoint of the path is situated on the reference object, but some part of the path is. The respective paths of the postpositional phrases in (257) are shown in Figure 30.

The claim that op implies that the endpoint of the implied path is situated on the surface of the reference object is supported by the fact that we can infer from (267a) that the fan is on the field after completion of the event. The claim that af denotes a path with an endpoint exterior to the reference object is supported by the fact that we can infer from (262b) that the fan is not on the field after completion of the event.

The exact interpretation of these postpositions also depends on the properties of the reference object: whereas in the case of a field the correct English translation of op and af would be “onto” and “off”, the correct renderings would be “up” and “down” when we are dealing with e.g. a hill. Although the intuitions are not as clear as in the case of the examples in (268), the core semantics of Figure 30 also seems to be present in (269): example (269a) is preferably interpreted as meaning that only the endpoint of the implied path is situated on the mountain; example (269b) is preferably interpreted as meaning that only the starting point is situated on the mountain (although this implication is not as strong as in the case of the circumpositional phrase van de berg af).

The third group has only one member, the adposition langsalong, and it implies that the path is more or less parallel to the length dimension of the reference object. In this respect, the preposition and the postposition langs in (270) behave in a similar way, as can be seen by comparing of Figure 31A below with Figure 20 in Section 32.3.1.2, sub III.

The difference between the preposition and the postposition langs is often not very clear, which may be due to the fact that the prepositional phrase in (270a) can also be used directionally. First, the examples in (271) show that the verb wandelento walk can take either the auxiliary hebben or zijn in the perfect tense. As with other spatial PPs, we expect the PP in (271a) to be locational (the activity of walking takes place along the river), whereas (271b) has a change-of-location reading. In the latter reading, the implication should be that Jan is located along the river as a result of the walking event, but this reading is not prominent, to say the least. The more prominent reading of (271b) is directional in nature; Jan has followed a path along the river. Note that this directional reading is found in example (271b'), where the langs-PP functions as an (optional) adverbial phrase characterizing the course of the path, and the predicative naar-PP refers to the endpoint of the path.

Second, the prepositional phrase can also be used in sentences like (272a-b), where the langs-PP denotes the extent of the road: as we saw in examples (216) and (220) in Section 32.3.1.2, sub IIB, the extent reading typically involves directional PPs.

The above discussion shows that the preposition langs can sometimes also be used directionally. The difference between directional prepositional and postpositional langs can be related to the dimensional properties of the reference object. If the reference object is very long, as in (270) and (271), the path denoted by langs can be either smaller or larger than the length of the reference object; if the reference object is relatively short, as in (273), the default interpretation seems to be that the path is longer than the length of the object (see Figure 31B). The marked status of (273b) suggests that langs is more likely to appear as a preposition in the latter case.

In the examples up to this point, the paths extend along the horizontal dimension of the reference objects. Example (274) shows that the path can also extend in the vertical dimension.

Superficially seen, it looks as if that the direction of the vertical path can be further specified by the elements omhoog/omlaagupwards/downwards, as in (275a). However, this is not the correct analysis. The fact, illustrated in (275b), that the PP langs het touw/de muur is optional and can undergo PP-over-V shows that we are dealing with a particle verb, omhoog/omlaag klimmento climb up/down, modified by an adverbial locational PP headed by langs.

This shows that example (275a) must be analyzed along the lines of example (271b') above, which also involves an adverbial locational PP headed by langs. That this is indeed the case is also clear from the fact that in (276) the particle omhoog/omlaag can easily be replaced by the unsuspected predicative PP naar boven.