THE PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

By : Aisyah Nur Saadah, Aviana Fadeline Siregar, Deffy Ayu Dyah, Dira Permata Sari, Pradita Nurrita

The Prepositional Phrase

Recognize a prepositional phrase when you see one.
Prepositional phrases modify nouns and verbs while indicating various relationships between subjects and verbs. They are used to color and inform sentences in powerful ways. 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:

Simply, Prepositional Phrases BEGIN with a preposition, END with a noun

So, here are the examples of basic prepositions.

and as for the prepositional phrases:

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!

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!

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 isis 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.

It happens many times that prepositions, conjunctions, and some adverbs have identical forms; therefore, it is easy to confuse or to use them incorrectly. The best method to detect prepositions is by analyzing the syntactic functionality of each linked sentence element.

Prepositions link two sentence elements having different syntactic functions. For example: verbs and their direct objects; nouns and their attributes; etc. Conjunctions link two morphologic/syntactic elements of the same type (including two prepositions), or two sentences. The adverb determines only one sentence element (a verb, a noun, an adjective, or another adverb) or an entire sentence. Few instances of detecting prepositions are highlighted next. Examples: We met her after lunch. (preposition) We thanked them after they did it. (conjunction) We left shortly after. (adverb)

EXERCISE!

EXERCISE!
Q: I'd rather have wine ____ beer. instead than instead from instead to instead of Q: _____ bad weather, the trip will be postponed to next week. In case In case of In case to In case from Q: _____ my fellow employees, I would like to thank management for all they have done to improve our situation. In behalf of To behalf of On behalf of From behalf of Q: We finally solved our problem ____ a new device created by our research and development department. from means of by means of by means from by means to Q: _____ me, I will be happy to dedicate a few extra hours to the cause. As for As of As to As from Q: You will have to remember that, _____ John, no one wants to work on this problem. apart to apart from apart apart of

EXERCISE!
Q: How can they be going out?! Jane has nothing _____ Peter. in common in common to in common of in common with Q: _____ John, they won't finish the project until the end of next week. According According in According from According to Q: I'm all ____ helping out the poor when in need. in favor of in favor to in favor for in favor from Q: We will have to postpone our trip _____ the bad weather. because because to because of because from Q: Because of the _____ interest in our product, we are going to stop production of the 'whamo ring'. lack lack of lack from lack in Q: _____ the large number of requests we have received, we are going to extend the sale to the end of the month. Due to Due of Due from Due

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Upon my arrival, I was whisked into a secret chamber. I can't complete the report without the information. Who says you can go around the world in eighty days? Come into the garden with me. She wanted to go to the movies. The girl from Pampa left her purse in the writing lab. The stories in that book were translated by my professor. She was looking for a man with money. That picture behind my desk used to hang in the

EXERCISE!