Prepositions have a job similar
to that of conjunctions, except with more variety. Prepositions describe a
specific relationship between nouns or pronouns and the rest of the sentence.
Here is an example:
Katherine moved around the
chair.
"Around" is the preposition in this sentence. It
relates "Katherine moved" with "the chair", in that she moved
around it. "Around" is the specific relation between Katherine's
movement and the chair.
However, she could also have moved under it, beside it, over
it, etc. This is why there are so many prepositions. In fact, a preposition is
just about anything you can do to a chair.
Of course, there are always some exceptions. Prepositions
that have to do with time, such as before and after, are exceptions. The word
“of”, an exception, may be the most commonly used preposition.
Whatever a preposition is relating the rest of the clause to
is called the object of the preposition. The object of the preposition almost
always comes somewhere after the preposition. There is sometimes an article or
a regular adjective in front of the object that describes it; there may even be
an adverb describing the adjective. Consider the following sentence:
The food supplies landed a few
hundred meters away from the very famished soldiers.
In this example, “from” is the preposition. “From” is
relating the rest of the sentence to “soldiers”, the object of the preposition.
As mentioned above, there may be some adjectives describing the object of the
preposition and some adverbs describing those adjectives. In this sentence,
there is one article, “the”, one regular adjective, “famished”, and one simple adverb,
“very”.
Here is a list of common prepositions. The underlined and
bolded prepositions are very common.
about
|
above
|
across
|
after
|
against
|
among
|
around
|
at
|
before
|
behind
|
beneath
|
below
|
between
|
by
|
down
|
during
|
for
|
from
|
in (and inside)
|
into
|
near
|
of
|
off
|
on
|
onto
|
out (and outside)
|
over
|
since
|
through
|
throughout
|
to
|
toward
|
under
|
until
|
up
|
upon
|
with
|
without
|
|
Many prepositions show location or position, but some
prepositions show time. The time prepositions are:
after
|
before
|
during
|
until
|
For example:
He walked into class just before
the bell rang.
She performed first aid on the
victim until the paramedics arrived.
He stayed calm during the
entire ordeal.
In the above examples, “before”, “until”, and “during” all
relate things with respect to time.
There are some prepositions that can serve as both time prepositions
and regular prepositions. Some common ones are:
at
|
for
|
from
|
in
|
on
|
past
|
to
|
within
|
between
|
by
|
since
|
|
For example:
She jumped at the sight of
the bear.
She began working at 10:00
a.m.
He dove between his
attackers.
His clinic was open between
9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
The deer was within range.
Within the hour, they had
spotted a deer.
In the examples above, the underlined prepositions are
regular prepositions, and the bolded prepositions are time prepositions.
Together, the preposition, object of the preposition, and
any modifiers combine to form a prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases are
very common in everyday writing. They may come before, in the middle of, or
after the main clause. Consider the following example:
In yesterday’s report,
witnesses claimed a man on a motorbike had stolen money from the
store.
The first prepositional phrase, “In yesterday’s report”
comes before the main clause.
The second prepositional phrase, “on a motorbike” comes in
the middle of the main clause.
The last prepositional phrase, “from the store”, comes after
the main clause.
In a sentence, a prepositional phrase serves to add more
detail to the sentence. It does this by relating the sentence to a noun or
pronoun. In the above example, instead of “Witnesses claimed that a man had
stolen money,” the three prepositional phrases add much more detail to the
scene.