Abstract
Although brief and discreet, prepositions are ubiquitous in verbal discourse. Many of them lend themselves to spatial or more abstract uses. Geographers make extensive use of them, exploiting their tendency to link existing entities, to make distinctions and thus to structure geographical thought. The main aim of this article is to show how geographers seek to translate certain prepositions into categories in order to better think and practice relational space. First, the rise of philosophical interest in prepositions in the first half of the twentieth century led to the emergence of a theoretical framework for their reasoned use in geography. The cases of the prepositions between and at the end are then developed using examples from Alpine geography to highlight their relevance in addressing issues not only of limits and distance, but also of identity, solidarity and conflict. The preposition with is also highlighted as part of a reflection on the coexistence of humans and non-humans. The role of prepositions thus seems crucial for any geography that wants to be more human, more-than-human and pragmatic, i. e. attentive to the particularities of concrete and local situations.