Prepositional Phrase
Prepositional Phrase is a phrase that
consists of a preposition and its object and has adjectival or adverbial value,
such as in the house in the people in the house or by him
in The book was written by him. At
the minimum, a prepositional phrase will begin with a preposition and end with
a noun, pronoun, gerund, or clause, the "object" of the preposition. The object of the preposition will
often have one or more modifiers to describe it. These are the patterns for a
prepositional phrase:
preposition + noun, pronoun, gerund, or
clause
preposition + modifier(s) + noun,
pronoun, gerund, or clause
Here are some examples of the most basic
prepositional phrase:
At home
At
= preposition; home = noun.
In time
In = preposition; time = noun.
From Richie
From
= preposition; Richie = noun.
With me
With
= preposition; me = pronoun.
By singing
By
= preposition; singing = gerund.
About what we need
About
= preposition; what we need = noun
clause.
Most prepositional phrases are longer, like
these:
From
my grandmother
From
= preposition; my = modifier; grandmother = noun.
Under
the warm blanket
Under
= preposition; the, warm =
modifiers; blanket = noun.
In the weedy, overgrown garden
In
= preposition; the, weedy, overgrown =
modifiers; garden = noun.
Along
the busy, six-lane highway
Along
= preposition; the, busy, six-lane =
modifiers; highway = noun.
Without
excessively worrying
Without
= preposition; excessively =
modifier; worrying = gerund.
Understand what
prepositional phrases do in a sentence.
A prepositional phrase will function as an
adjective or adverb.
·
As an adjective,
the prepositional phrase will answer the question which one?
Read these examples:
The book on the bathroom floor is swollen from shower steam.
Which
book? The one on the bathroom floor!
The sweet potatoes in the vegetable bin are green with mold.
Which
sweet potatoes? The ones forgotten in the
vegetable bin!
The note from Beverly confessed that she had eaten the leftover pizza.
Which
note? The one from Beverly!
·
As an adverb, a
prepositional phrase will answer questions such as How? When? or Where?
Freddy is stiff from yesterday's long football practice.
How
did Freddy get stiff? From yesterday's
long football practice!
Before class, Josh begged his friends
for a pencil.
When did Josh do his begging? Before class!
Feeling brave, we tried the Dragon
Breath Burritos at Tito's Taco Palace.
Where
did we eat the spicy food? At Tito's
Taco Palace!
Remember that a
prepositional phrase will never contain the subject of a sentence.
Sometimes a noun within the prepositional
phrase seems the logical subject of a verb. Don't fall for that trick! You will
never find a subject in a prepositional phrase. Look at this example:
Neither of these cookbooks contains the recipe for Manhattan-style squid
eyeball stew.
Cookbooks do indeed contain recipes. In
this sentence, however, cookbooks is
part of the prepositional phrase of
these cookbooks. Neither—whatever
a neither is—is the subject for the verb contains.
Neither
is singular, so you need the singular form of the verb, contains. If you
incorrectly identified cookbooks as the subject, you might write
contain, the plural form, and thus commit a subject-verb agreement
error.
Some prepositions—such as along with and in addition to—indicate "more to come." They will make
you think that you have a plural subject when in fact you don't. Don't fall for
that trick either! Read this example:
Tommy, along with the other students, breathed a sigh of relief when Mrs.
Markham announced that she was postponing the due date for the research essay.
Logically, more than one student is happy
with the news. But Tommy is the only subject of the verb breathed. His classmates count in the real world, but in the
sentence, they don't matter, locked as they are in the prepositional phrase.
