4 Prepositions

The clue to remembering the job of prepositions is right in the name: preposition. Prepositions indicate how things are related to one another in a sentence, and most of the time that means expressing their relative positions in space, time, or order.

Click on the + icons below to see how prepositions work.

Some Common Prepositions

There are many prepositions — too many to list here — but the following table includes the most common ones.

Prepositions Don’t Work Alone

Imagine you asked me to borrow a pen and I replied, “Sure thing! Look in.”  In what, you might ask. Although prepositions are really helpful, they don’t work if they’re left on their own. Instead, they work as part of a prepositional phrase that includes a preposition (like in) and at least one additional word that answers the question posed by the preposition. In this case, the question would be “in what?”

Let’s see a few examples to illustrate the concept:

The motorcycle is parked between two big trucks.

• • • preposition is “between.” Between what? Between two big trucks.

Marjorie walked past me.

• • • preposition is “past.” Past whom? Past me.

Soccer season starts after the first day of school. 

• • • first preposition is “after.” After what? After the first day.
    • second preposition is “of”. Of what? Of school.

Notice a pattern to all three prepositional phrases?

1. They always start with a preposition.
2. They always end with a noun or pronoun.

Prepositional phrases can also include adjectives, and sometimes they will be strung together in a chain. That’s because a prepositional phrase does the same job as adjectives and adverbs: it modifies other parts of a sentence.