Parts of Speech: Prepositions

Prepositions are a very common element in English sentences. Learning to recognize them will help you master sentence structure and become a better writer.

What is a preposition?

A preposition is a kind of connecting word: it joins a noun, a pronoun or any nominal (a word or word group acting as a noun) to another word in a sentence and shows the relationship between them.

For example, here is a sentence containing the preposition on:

• Bart ate the cookies on the table.

Here, the preposition on is connecting the noun table with the word cookies and showing the relationship between them.

In this case, the preposition shows a relationship of location, since on tells us where the cookies are located in relationship to the table. They're not over the table, or under the table, or beside the table; they're on the table. (Or at least they were, before Bart ate them.)

What kinds of relationships do prepositions show?

Most of our common prepositions show relationships of time, location or direction:

• Time: after, at, before, during, since, till, until
• Location: above, against, among, around, at, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, in, inside, near, on, outside, over, past, throughout, under, upon, with, within
• Direction: across, along, around, down, from, into, off, onto, out, through, to, toward, up

What is the object of a preposition?

After every preposition there is a noun, a pronoun or a nominal (a word or word group acting as a noun). This word or word group is called the object of the preposition. For example, in the phrase on the table, the noun table is the object of the preposition on.

What is a prepositional phrase?

A preposition combined with one or more objects gives you a prepositional phrase. If there are any modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) between the preposition and its object, they are part of the phrase as well.

Here are some examples of prepositional phrases:

• beside the smouldering fire
  (preposition beside + modifiers + noun object fire)
• with swords and bayonets
  (preposition with + noun objects swords and bayonets)
• between you and me
  (preposition between + pronoun objects you and me)
• without opening the letter
  (preposition without + word group opening the letter, which is a nominal
  serving as the object of the preposition)

What is the difference between a preposition and an adverb?

Many of the words included in the above lists of prepositions can be used as adverbs as well. In that case, they will not take an object:

• Marjorie raced past the startled security guard.
  (Past the startled security guard is a prepositional phrase, with past as
  the preposition and guard as its object.)
• Marjorie raced past.
  (Past by itself is an adverb.)

Do you really expect me to remember all these words?

Does it seem as if there are just too many prepositions to remember? Well, don't despair! Just remember wiffaboot.

What is wiffaboot? It's a word formed from the first letters of the nine most common prepositions in the English language: with, in, for, from, at, by, of, on and to.

Since most of the prepositions we use every day belong to this short list, if you can remember wiffaboot, you're off to a good start!