Can we speak about adpositional phrases without complements?

The aim of the present study is to examine the continuum between adpositions and adverbs in Estonian. The paper focuses on three words that can be used with the same meaning either as adpositions or as adverbs: asemele 'instead of [allative case]', peale 'onto' and labi 'through'. Data for the study was collected from the Estonian National Corpus 2019 via Sketch Engine. Adpositional phrases without a complement encompass the following possibilities: a) a complement noun is mentioned in the same or the previous sentence; b) a complement noun has occurred somewhere in the foregoing text; c) a suitable complement noun can be established from general knowledge about the world; d) phrases with a quasi-complement, e.g. with a noun that could be a complement even though it is not in complement case (genitive) but in a local case (elative or allative); e) phrases with a demonstrative pro-adverb which refers to the place of the complement entity. The study also discusses verb-particle combinations with the same adverbs. Verb-particle combinations with asemele are more typical combinations than those with peale and labi which usually form more idiomatic phrasal verbs. One implication of this study is that the continuum between the adposition and adverb reveals the linguistic flexibility which enables language users the possibility of expressing themselves exactly according to the needs of the communication situation.