Prepositional Phrases

1
Prepositional Phrases

• Mrs. Henson
• English III AP
• Adapted from Sentence Composing for High School
  Students by Don Killgallon

2
Overview

• Begins with a preposition.
• Ends with the object of the preposition.
• Used to describe people, places, and things.
• Sentences may contain single or consecutive
  prepositional phrases.

3
Common Prepositions

• In
• Before
• After
• At
• Down
• Across
• Inside
• Outside
• Between
• Within
• Behind
• On
• By
• Under
• Around
• Down
• Into
• Against
• Near

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Important!!

• Prepositions serve as either an adjective or
  adverb in a sentence.
• Just as with modifiers, prepositional phrases
  MUST be placed in close proximity to the item
  being modified.
• If not placed properly, your sentence will have
  reference problems and be confusing to your
  reader!!!

5
Models

• Without Prepositions

• With Prepositions

• All children grow up.
• He groped out and began to sob.

• All children, except one, grow up.
• J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
• He groped out for me with both of his own arms,
  like a drowning man, and began to sob against my
  stomach.
• Stephen King, The Mouse on the Mile

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Placement of Prepositional Phrases

• Single Phrases
• With a quick, guilty hand, she covered the tear,
  her shoulders bunching to hide her face.
• Zenna Henderson, The Believing Child
• Consecutive Phrases
• In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.
• J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit
• Sentence Openers
• Through the fence, between the curling flower
  spaces, I could see them hitting.
• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

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Placement of Prepositional Phrases

• Subject-Verb Splits
• Bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray,
  steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
• Sentence Closers
• The sea is high again today, with a thrilling
  flush of wind.
• Lawrence Durrell, Justine

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Unscrambling 1

1. across the ripples
2. it was morning
3. and the new sun sparkled gold
4. of a gentle sea

• It was morning and the new sun sparkled gold
  across the ripples of a gentle sea.
• -Richard Bach, Jonathon Livingston Seagull

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Unscrambling 2

1. the boy felt good
2. in his mouth
3. of ham and biscuit
4. with the flavor

• With the flavor of ham and biscuit in his mouth,
  the boy felt good.
• -William H. Armstrong, Sounder

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Unscrambling 3

1. in one of Colins books
2. with the ivy behind her
3. of Colins books
4. she was
5. and with her nice fresh face smiling across the
   greenery
6. with the sunlight through the trees
7. dappling her long blue cloak
8. like a softly colored illustration

• With the ivy behind her, with the sunlight
  through the trees dappling her long blue cloak,
  and with her nice fresh face smiling across the
  greenery, she was like a softly colored
  illustration in one of Colins books.
• -Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

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Prepositions Practice

• Practice 2
• Unscramble each set of sentence parts to create 2
  different sentences.
• Write 1 sentence of your own imitating each of
  the sentences found in the Other Models section

• Practice 3
• Combine each set of sentence parts into 1
  sentence which imitates the model.
• Then write 1 sentence of your own imitating each
  of the models.