Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases

Prepositions and prepositional phrases

Prepositions are those little words that help us describe time and place. They are also used in combinations with verbs and adjectives.

Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition + noun  / noun phrase.

Let’s explore these interesting words and how they are used.

List of prepositions

This is a list of common prepositions:

 about          between   out

 above         beyond     over

 across        by              since

 after           despite     through

 against      down        throughout            

 along         during      till

 among       for            to

 around      from        toward(s)

 at                in             under

 before        into          until

 behind       like          up

 below        near        upon

 beneath     of            with

 beside       off           while

 besides     on           without

Prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases make an important element of an English sentence. The structure is:

prepositional phrase = preposition + noun, pronoun, or noun phrase

The noun that comes after the preposition is its object.

• The book is on the desk. (on the desk is a prepositional phrase. The desk is the object of the preposition on.)

If a sentence has both place and time, we put the prepositional phrase of place before that of time.

• They walked in the park in the morning. (in the park shows place, and in the morning describes time.)

To give a prepositional phrase more focus, we may put it at the beginning of the sentence.

• In the morning, they walked in the park.

Following are illustrations of common uses of prepositions.