Lesson 1: Parts Of Speech
Prepositions
In this section you will learn about prepositions.
Marvin Terban in his book "Scholastic Guides Checking Your Grammar" says "A preposition is a word that shows the relationship of one word in a sentence to another word.
The four things that prepositions tell are 1) where something is (location); 2) where something is going (direction); 3) when something happens (time); 4) the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and another word in a sentence." (74)
The following list of prepositions was taken from the book, "The Rules of the Game An Introductory English Grammar" by Howard Faulkner. I highly recommend this book.
This is a partial list of prepositions: at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, with, about, after, against, before, between.
Look at these exercises and see if you can locate the preposition.
Exercises
(1) Megan sat by the phone waiting for her boyfriend to call.
(2) Tina, who was six, sat eagerly on the piano bench waiting for her first piano lesson.
(3) Sadey and Abby dashed upon the bed to lie down.
(4) I am hoping Christy can go to the store with me after work.
(5) We like to read our favorite mystery books.
Prepositional Phrases
A preposition is also the first word of a prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases can be made up of two or more words. Also, each prepositional phrase has an object.
Let's look at the following exercises and see if you can find the prepositional phrases.
Exercises
1. It's time to go to the store.
2. I enjoy going to the theater and watching mysteries.
3. One of my favorite mystery writers is Catherine Coulter.
4. When it rained, my car had water on the inside of it.
5. The basketball players played as well as they could.
According to Howard Faulkner in his book, objects of prepositional phrases can be nouns, pronouns, gerunds, and noun clauses. For more information, review page 155 of the book mentioned above.
The following examples can be found in the book by Howard Faulkner on page 155.
"Noun: In biology, we dissected a frog.
Pronoun: Just between you and me, it was not pleasant.
Gerund: By examining the insides, I learned a great deal.
Noun clause: I am proud of what I learned."
In the first sentence, biology is the object of the prepositional phrase.
In the second sentence, the phrase you and me is the object.
In the third sentence, the phrase examining the insides is the object.
In the last sentence, what I learned is the object.
