In linguistics, an adpositional phrase is a general term that includes prepositional phrases (which are usually found in head-first languages like English) and postpositional phrases (usually found in head-final languages like Japanese). The difference between the two is simply one of word order.
Both types of adpositional phrases are a syntactic category: a phrase which is treated in certain ways as a unit by a language's rules of syntax. An adpositional phrase is composed of an adposition (in the head position, which is why it lends its name to the phrase) and usually a complement such as a noun phrase. ("Adposition" is similarly a generic term for either a preposition or a postposition.) These phrases generally act as complements and adjuncts of noun phrases and verb phrases.
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