Prepositions?

We’re continuing with the parts of speech with a discussion about prepositions. These words never change their form. They link nouns, pronouns, or phrases to other words in a sentence. You may remember a hint from elementary school: a preposition is anything a squirrel can do to a log, or a plane can do to a cloud. It can go over, under, around, toward…

Here are some common prepositions:

about        behind        during            like            under
above        below          except            near           up
across       beneath      excluding       of               upon
after          beside         following        on              via
along         between     from               over            with
among      beyond       in                     since           within
as               by                including       through      without
at                despite       inside             to
before        down          into                 toward

(I wrote most of those prepositions by heart because my sixth grade teacher made her students memorize them.)

Some prepositions combine more than one word:

according to     except for              instead of               because of           in place of
along with         in addition to       on account of         by means of       in regard to
apart from         in case of              up to                         by way of           in spite of
as to                    in front of             with regard to        in place of          with reference to

A preposition along with its object and any modifiers become a prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases act as adjectives and adverbs.

We went swimming after the party.  In the previous sentence, after the party is the prepositional phrase that tells when. In this sentence, phrase is acting like an adverb.

The baby with the pink bow is Mary Wade. In the previous sentence, with the pink bow is the prepositional phrase that tells which baby. It’s acting like an adjective.

This post simply introduces prepositions. Spend some time learning them. Next time, we’ll uncover more layers of the preposition.

Happy writing!