What is the difference between case marking particles and adpositions?

Question

Apparently there is some relevant book which claims, more or less:

Case marking particles and adpositions are not identical, one is a morphological, one a syntactic unit.

This claim was heard third hand via a student of Japanese. Does this claim have merit?

I agree that the question is ineptly put, but at its core it has merit. It asks about the distinction between case markers and adpositions. Concerning Japanese, Chomskian grammars usually treat case particles as postpositions, which is, however, technically incorrect. On the other hand, Japanese clearly possesses grammaticalized postpositions such as -ni tot-te 'for', or -ni tui-te 'about'. The issue is worth discussing. — Thomas Gross, Oct 31 '14 at 06:08
Stack Exchange encourages us to rescue questions by editing them to fit SE standards. I also see the merit of this question. I think some questions very similar to it have been asked here before though. — hippietrail, Oct 31 '14 at 14:24
@ThomasGross: Please elaborate on "technically incorrect". I find "technically" an extremely non-technical word that can mean anything, often something is not specified, and often something contestable by a different technical approach. — hippietrail, Oct 31 '14 at 14:26
This question is probably unsalvageable, but someone could post a new, more coherent question on the topic of Japanese case markers versus postpositions (and possibly answer their own question). — , Oct 31 '14 at 16:36
@hippietrail It's bad practice to ask me about a definition of a notion that isn't pertinent to the discussion in this thread. — Thomas Gross, Oct 31 '14 at 17:22
I'll salvage it. Please see the SE blog and SE meta on the topics of editing other people's questions and answers to "make the internet better". — hippietrail, Oct 31 '14 at 23:16
Oh and here's the most similar previous question:How do linguists distinguish between case endings and postpositions, especially in languages which have both and/or have no traditional grammar. And this one is pretty similar too but also brings in clitics: What are the criteria that distinguish clitics/particles from affixes? — hippietrail, Oct 31 '14 at 23:24
@hippietrail your first link looks like a good duplicate. I can't vote again to mark it as a duplicate but if I could I would. — curiousdannii, Nov 01 '14 at 00:55
@curiousdannii: It looks like this question is now open again so if you try again you can probably nominate it as a dupe now ... — hippietrail, Nov 01 '14 at 04:39
Well, you didn't salvage it, you turned it into something the OP didn't ask. It's definitely not a duplicate of the first link, in any case, just related. — , Nov 01 '14 at 22:21

What is the difference between case marking particles and adpositions?

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