The Parts of Speech: Prepositions and Their Phrases

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The Parts of Speech Prepositions and Their
Phrases

• The Job of a Preposition
• A List of Prepositions
• Memorizing Prepositions
• Identifying Prepositions
• Is it a Preposition A Test Sentence
• What is a Prepositional Phrase?
• Prepositional Pitfalls

Griffin Technical College Learning Support Center
Written by Cynthia L. Baynham
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As tendons connect muscle to bone, prepositions
connect their objects to another part of the
sentence.
We left
after the movie.
The flock
of birds
ate all the berries.
Sue and Tim met
in the moonlit garden
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A short list of the most common prepositions can
be found at http//www.abcteach.com/abclists/prepo
sitions.htmClick on this link and print off the
list of prepositions and begin memorizing them
one column at a time.
So how can you locate prepositional phrases?
First you must memorize the most common
prepositions, so you can recognize them when you
see them.
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Memory and Learning Tips

• Break the material down into bite-sized pieces.
  (With the list of prepositions, learn one column
  at a time.)
• Expose yourself to the material in a variety of
  ways read it, recite it, read it aloud, and
  write it.
• Review what you have learned daily so you dont
  forget it and have to relearn it.
• If you are learning a concept or a rule, explain
  the material to yourself as if you are both
  student and teacher.

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Some prepositions give a position in space or
time
We left after the movie.
Time The phrase tells when we left.
Sue and Tim met in the moonlit garden.
Space The phrase tells where they met.
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Some, but not all prepositions will fit into this
sentence

The plane flew _____________ the clouds.
The plane flew over the clouds.
The plane flew under the clouds.
The plane flew through the clouds.
The plane flew above the clouds.
However, some prepositions dont fit in the
sentence.
The plane flew of the clouds.
The plane flew except the clouds.
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So what makes up a prepositional phrase?

• A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition
  and ends with the last object of the preposition,
  which can be a noun or a pronoun.

with Tom
object
preposition
The preposition can have more than one object
with Tom and me
preposition
objects
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The prepositional phrase also includes any
modifiers that go with the object

• A modifier for a noun is called an adjective.
  Adjectives answer the questions Which kind?
  Which one? How Many? and Whose?

Preposition
Modifiers
Object(s)
in the
moonlit garden

after the long,
boring movie
among the white
fluffy clouds
Remember, prepositional phrases begin with
prepositions and end with the last object. You
cant find prepositional phrases unless you
memorize your prepositions.
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Why are prepositions and their phrases important?
Read this paragraph from Ernest Hemingways Old
Man and the Sea with all of the prepositional
phrases left in place
The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man
could see the other boats, low on the water and
well in toward the shore, spread out across the
current. Then the sun was brighter and the glare
came on the water and then, as it rose clear, the
flat sea sent it back at his eyes so that it hurt
sharply and he rowed without looking into it. He
looked down into the water and watched the lines
that went straight down into the dark of the
water. He kept them straighter than anyone did,
so that at each level in the darkness of the
stream there would be a bait waiting exactly
where he wished it to be for any fish that swam
there. Others let them drift with the current and
sometimes they were at sixty fathoms when the
fishermen thought they were at a hundred.
Now read it without the prepositional phrases
The sun rose thinly and the old man could see the
other boats, low and well, spread out. Then the
sun was brighter and the glare came and then as
it rose clear, the flat sea sent it back so that
it hurt sharply and he rowed. He looked down and
watched the lines that went straight down. He
kept them straighter than anyone did, so that
there would be a bait waiting exactly where he
wished it to be. Others let them drift and
sometimes they were when the fisherman thought
they were.
Doesnt the text lose much of its meaning without
the prepositional phrases?
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Danger While prepositional phrases are very
important to the meaning of the sentence, they
can cause grammatical errors.
Danger 1 They can come between a subject and a
verb. The problem occurs when the writer thinks
the object of the preposition is the subject of
the sentence. The object of the preposition can
NEVER be the subject of the sentence!
What is the subject of the following sentence and
what verb agrees with it?
Paintings in a museum (is/are) available for all
to see.
If you said paintings then you are right. Museum
is the object of the preposition in. Because the
subject, paintings, is plural, we must use the
plural verb, are.
.
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Danger Two Many times people will mistakenly
use the subjective case pronoun as the object of
a preposition. A pronoun that is the object of a
preposition must be in the OBJECTIVE case.
The objective case pronouns are me, us, you, him,
her, it, them.
This error most commonly occurs when the object
of the preposition is compound.
Wrong The Galloways are going to the beach with
Tom and I.
Correct The Galloways are going to the beach
with Tom and me.
We wouldnt say, The Galloways are going to the
beach with I, would we?
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Tip When you have a compound object, and you
are trying to decide which pronoun to use, try
eliminating the other part of the compounded
object of the preposition. If you use pronouns as
the single object of the preposition correctly,
you should have no problems choosing the pronoun
to use in the compound object.
For example, Mike bought tickets for Zoe and
(I/me) becomes Mike bought tickets for I, or Mike
bought tickets for me.
Clearly, the second choice, me, is the correct
answer.
This trick doesnt work with the preposition
between because, logically, between requires two
objects. Always fall back on the rule
Pronoun objects of the preposition must be in the
objective case.