Lugamun has the following simple prepositions:

• a – to, for (target, recipient, dative/allative)
• an – about, concerning, regarding, toward, towards, on
• be – by (agent of a passive verb or creator of a work)
• bina – without
• de, ki – of, ‘s (genitive)
• gen – with, along with (comitative)
• gi – for (the benefit of), toward(s)
• ni – in, at, on (locative/time)
• por – for, due to, out of, because of, for the sake of
• yon – with, by, by means of, using, via (instrumental)

The object marker o and the subject marker i are similar to prepositions, but in most cases they can be (and usually are) omitted. Prepositions, on the other hand, are never omitted.

XXX Add more explanations and some examples for each preposition.

XXX Probably de … a … is used for ranges such as ‘10 to 15 people came. / She works from 8am to 5pm. / I’m looking for a gift that costs between 15 and 30 dollars.’ If it’s clear from the context, de may be omitted.

Some words can be used both as preposition and as conjunction (linking two clauses):

• kom – as, like, such as

XXX Also explain gi tu '(in order) to’.

XXX Samples for kom (conj+prep):

… – Do as I say!
… – I respect her as a teacher, but I don’t like her.
… – He acted like a wild dog.

Compound prepositions include include a noun, e.g. ni sima ‘on, on top of’. Such prepositions are follow straight by a noun phrase just like any other preposition (no need for de). This can be considered a case of apposition.

Combined ni … prepositions can be shorted to just ni if the intended meaning is clear from the context.

XXX Add explanation on how to reduce the potential ambiguity of prepositional phrases after the object. To make it clear that the prepositional phrase refers to the verb, place it before the object: Man [call] ni Amerika o ona. In such cases, o must be used before the object, since it doesn’t immediately follow the verb. To make it clear that it refers to the object, use a relative clause: Man [call] ona ke xi ni Amerika.

XXX Recommend a typical default order, possibly: subject – time expression – verb – object – indirect object (recipient) – other prepositional phrases.

XXX Quickly document all prepositions, including the temporal sense of de for ‘since’ and a for ‘until, till’.

De and ki both express that something belongs to something else, but they take their arguments in different order. With de, the “owned” item comes before the preposition, while the “owner” (in a very wide sense of the word) comes after it. With ki, it’s the other way around.

These two phrases have the same meaning:

xvan de nubaca – the dog of the girl
nubaca ki xvan – the girl’s dog

As do these:

garaje de [car] de mis mama – the garage of the car of my mother
mis mama ki [car] ki garaje – my mother’s car’s garage

Here de is translated as ‘of’, and ki as genitive (‘s), but don’t feel obliged to do so when translating between English and Lugamun. In Lugamun, de is more frequently used than ki, and it’s perfectly fine to use it for translating the genitive – just remember to switch the order of arguments around.

When ki and de both occur in the same phrase, ki binds tighter, which means that the phrase containing it is to be understood as part of the phrase containing de, rather than the other way around.

garaje de mis mama ki [car]. – the garage of my mother’s car

As one might notice from this example, possessive pronouns such as mis bind tighter than any preposition.