摘要
The diagrammatic representation of sentence structure and immediate constituents is common practice among grammarians. The present paper presents two sets of diagrammatic representation of an iconic nature, for (1) directional complements and (2) prepositions. A close parallel is found between Chinese directional complements and the German separable prefixes, except that when a verb V plus a compound directional complement is separated by an object O, it is in the order VC1+O+C2, whereas the corresponding German forms will have the order V+O+P1P2. In the diagrams for prepositions, a dot represents the subject, a circle the object, and an arrow or arrows the relation between them. The examples on the left are prepositions of time and space and those on the right have more figurative or more general meanings.