The examples in (71) show that, besides the prepositions, there is a smaller set of postpositions, i.e. adpositions that follow their nominal complement. A comparison of (68a) and (71a) reveals that some adpositional items can be used either as prepositions or as postpositions. Broadly speaking, the most conspicuous semantic difference between prepositions and postpositions is that the former refer to a certain position in space or on the timeline, whereas the latter refer to a path; cf. Section 32.3.1 for a more precise and detailed discussion.

Table 7 provides a list of spatial postpositions; all examples can be inserted on the dots in the template Jan reed ...Jan drove .... If we compare this set of postpositions with the set of spatial prepositions in Table 5, we see that the former is practically a subset of the latter; the only adposition that cannot be found in Table 5 is the postposition afoff (although the Van Dale dictionary mentions that af is used as a preposition in certain varieties of Dutch).

postposition	example	translation
af	de berg af	down the mountain
binnen	het huis binnen	into the house
door	het hek door	through the gate
in	de sloot in	into the ditch
langs	het huis langs	along the house
om	de hoek om	around the corner
op	de berg op	up the mountain
over	het grasveld over	across the lawn
rond	het plein rond	around the square
uit	de auto uit	out of the car
voorbij	het huis voorbij	past the house

In addition to the forms in Table 7, the adposition onderunder seems to occur as a postposition in the southern and Flemish varieties of Dutch (Liliane Haegeman, p.c.). standard Dutch has constructions like (72), but there the noun kopje is clearly not the complement of the adposition; instead, the adposition seems to have a cognate complement corresponding to the water in the English renderings. The phrases kopje onder gaan and iemand kopje onder duwen should be regarded as fixed idiomatic expressions.

Table 8 shows that the set of temporal postpositions is even smaller than the set of spatial postpositions. The set seems to be exhaustively filled by the adpositions door, in and uit.

postposition	example	translation
door	het hele jaar door	throughout the year
in	het nieuwe jaar in	into the new year
uit	dag in dag uit	lit: into day out of day ‘continuously’

Sometimes, geleden and terug in (73) are also included in the set of temporal postpositions. However, these elements differ from the postpositions in Table 8 in that they do not express the notion of path (on the timeline), but simply refer to a fixed point in time.

A final comment may be necessary on the expression het klokje rond, which refers to a time span of about twelve hours. It seems wrong to interpret the adposition rond here as a temporal postposition, since the implication is that the clock’s hour hand has made its way around the face of the clock; we seem to be dealing with a spatial postposition. Note that besides (74a), (74b) is also possible; this may be due to the fact that a year can be measured by means of the zodiac, which is usually represented as a circle.