Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
Prepositions: A preposition is a word that relates a noun or pronoun to another word in a sentence.
Preposition Poem:
Over, under, around, through,
Inside, outside, out of, to,
Between, by, underneath, aboard,
About, above, because of, toward.
With, within, without, along,
Past, behind, near, beyond,
Before, after, upon, onto,
In front of, in back of, like, into.
In, out, up, down,
From, for, off, on,
At, of, below, beneath,
Beside, except, next to, since,
(besides) (except for).
Different prepositions change the meaning of a phrase. For example
He sat in the tree.
He sat on the tree.
He sat by the tree
He sat underneath the tree.
A preposition is always followed by a word (noun or pronoun) called the object of the preposition.
In the sentences above the object of the prepositions is tree. The object of the preposition may also
have one or more adjectives which modify it. For example: He sat in the leafy apple tree. Leafy and
apple describe the tree; tree is still the object. The preposition, all the modifiers, and the object are
called a prepositional phrase.
There may be more than one object of the preposition. For example: in the summer or the winter.
Summer and winter are both objects of the preposition “in.”
Prepostional phrases add color and description to our writing. They make it more specific and help
paint pictures in the readers’ minds.