[...] in ‘the pencil on the desk’ and ‘the pencil in the desk’, ‘on’ and ‘in’ stand in construction with ‘the desk’; but each marks the fact that the constitute it begins is atrributive to something here—to ‘the pencil’. We cannot call ‘on’ and ‘in’ markers, because a marker signals a relationship between constituents without itself being one. But the structure-indicating role of directive particles leads us to call them ‘impure markers’.
- Hockett (1958), a pag.192

A stronger kind of linkage is by ‘marker’: ‘men and women’ with the marker ‘and’: Japanese / anata no tomodati / “your friend” with marker /no/. Earlier sections have supplied many examples of this, as also of linkage by ‘impure marker’: ‘on’ in ‘the pencil on the table’; ‘if’ in ‘I’ll go with you if you like’.
- Hockett (1958), a pag.214