The paper stems from the preliminary results of a PhD thesis concentrating on phraseology in Spanish, Italian and English judicial texts. From a methodological point of view, the research relies on COSPE, a multilingual (ES-IT-EN), comparable corpus of criminal judgments delivered by the Supreme Courts and appellate courts of Spain, Italy and England and Wales. The focus of the paper is on complex prepositions (locuciones prepositivas, locuzioni preposizionali) which play a pivotal role in legal texts in general and particularly in criminal judgments.
