pre-

A PREFIX used commonly in PHONETICS and LINGUISTICS, referring to relative POSITION in a SEQUENCE; opposed to POST-. In phonetics, it usually refers to an ARTICULATION a little in front of a recognized PLACE OF ARTICULATION, e.g. ‘PRE-PALATAL’, ‘PRE-VELAR’. The terms ‘PREVOCALIC’, ‘pre-CONSONANTAL’, however, do not refer to points of articulation, but to sounds occurring in a specific SYLLABIC position, viz. before a VOWEL/CONSONANT respectively; ‘pre-head’ has a similar force within the TONE GROUP; ‘pre-ASPIRATION’ and ‘pre-NASALIZATION’ illustrate temporal uses of the term. In LINGUISTICS, the term is found in relation to several GRAMMATICAL contexts, such as PREDETERMINER, ‘pre-article’, ‘pre-verbal’, PRE-LEXICAL, PRELINGUISTIC, PREMODIFICATION – and, of course, PREPOSITION.