Prepositional Phrases

In a sentence prepositions show the relation of one word to another word. Prepositions require an object to complete them, typically a noun or a pronoun. A preposition and its object is called a prepositional phrase.

The Prepositional Phrase: If a word in the table below does not have an object, then the word is not functioning as a preposition.

Prepositions do not change form.

Prepositions are not without evaluation challenges. For instance, a preposition paired with a verb is called a phrasal verb, a preposition can follow, rather than precede its object.

A workbook series called Easy Grammar takes advantage of prepositions in sentence mark-up. You can read about how to plan Easy Grammar at donnayoung.org.

The words below can be used as a preposition in a prepositional phrase.
Preposition List, A Text File a text file of words that can be used as a preposition

about	below	in spite of	regarding
above	beneath	instead of	since
according to	beside	into	through
across	between	like	throughout
after	beyond	near	to
against	but (meaning except)	of	toward
along	by	off	under
amid	concerning	on	underneath
among	down	on account of	until
around	during	onto	up
at	except	out	upon
atop	for	out of	with
because of	from	outside	within
before	in	over	without
behind	inside	past

The words above can be used as prepositions. In order for one of these words to be considered a preposition, it must be part of a prepositional phrase. Here are some examples of a prepositional phrase:

over the hill
behind the door
at Mary's house
without your coat
during lunch
atop Mount Everest

Notice that the prepositional phrase contains no verbs. Generally, they contain an adjective, a noun or pronoun and they can also contain a gerund. The noun or pronoun is the object of the preposition. Prepositional phrases can also contain conjunctions to join two nouns or pronouns as in this example:

underneath sand and rock

The advantage of being able to recognize prepositional phrases in sentences is that neither the subject nor the verb will ever be a part of the prepositional phrase. Consider this sentence: "The coat on the chair is mine." If we eliminate the prepositional phrase, "on the chair" then we can easily see that coat is the subject and is is the verb.
"The coat ~~on the chair~~ is mine."

An activity to learn prepositions is playing preposition bingo. This game was devised by the author of the Easy Grammar series. There are additional printable bingo cards on this web-site on the Preposition Bingo page. Another activity that my children and I would do is to make up prepositional phrases. Using the list of prepositions or our memory, we would make up phrases for the words such as:

after the fall
behind my chair
beyond the sunset
amid the crowd

The children's book, Bears in the Night (Berenstein Bears), is full of prepositional phrases. Your public library might have a copy of this book.