Prepositional Phrases Explained

Prepositional Phrases

• A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition followed by a noun, a pronoun, or a phrase.

Examples of Prepositional Phrases

• "Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go."
  • "Over" is the preposition, and "the river" (a noun) indicates what is being gone over.
  • "Through" is the preposition, and "the woods" specifies what is being gone through.
  • "To" is the preposition, and "grandmother's house" (a noun phrase) indicates the destination.

Function of Prepositional Phrases

• Prepositional phrases provide additional information and clarification about a topic, direction, or situation.
• They often express time.
  • "At 05:30, I'm going to have dinner."
    • "At" is the preposition.
    • "05:30" is the noun specifying the time.

Common Prepositions

• Examples include: about, above, across, after, against, among, at, before, behind, between, by, during, for, from, over, in, on, inside, of, to, toward, under, until, with, up.
• It's important to remember these words are prepositions to identify prepositional phrases correctly.

Prepositional Phrases as Idioms

• Idioms are phrases where the meaning is not easily understood from the literal definitions of the individual words.
• Examples:
  • "Down the line" means "in the future."
  • "On sale" refers to items with a reduced price.
  • "In order to" signifies that something must be done for something else to happen.
  • "At home", "by heart", "in addition", "in a way", "in person", "for fun", "on foot", "on the money".

More Examples

• "At 6:00, we went to the park."
• "Between two slices of bread."
• "I went toward the swimming pool."
• "I went under the fence."

Function of Prepositional Phrases Recap

• Prepositional phrases help explain the direction or action being performed.