Prepositional Phrases

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Welcome to class! 

In today’s class, we will be talking about prepositional phrases. Enjoy the class!

Prepositional Phrases

Phrase

A phrase is a group of words that has the combination of closely related words but does not express a complete thought.

Prepositions

Prepositions, on the other hand, are function words that introduce prepositional phrases. A preposition shows the relationship between a noun, a pronoun, a noun phrase or other words in the sentence. Examples are in, with, on, from, of, along, to and for.

Prepositional Phrase

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that has a preposition as its headword(prepend) and a noun, pronoun or a noun phrase as its object(completive or complement). In order words, a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition with its object and any accompanying modifiers.

The headword (prepend) which is a preposition serves as a marker that introduces the prepositional phrase. For instance,

• in the class
• on the table

These two sentences are instances of prepositional phrases, whereby ‘in’ and ‘on’ are the headwords (prepend) while ‘the class’ and ‘the table’ are the completive (or prepositional complement).

The prepositional phrase can function as an adjunct (adverbial) in the sentence as in the following:

• The students went to the school farm.

Just as adverbs, a prepositional phrase can also occur at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of sentences. For example:

• The man in the room is my uncle.
• Kanu became the best striker of the year.
• My grandma has been kind to her neighbour.
• For your information, I’m married.
• The infant is with her sister.
• I am at the place you told me about yesterday.

Evaluation

Note that the perpend are emboldened and underlined in the above sentences, while the completive are only embolden, both forming a prepositional phrase in each sentence. Now do something similar with the following sentences. Circle the prepend and underline the completive. You can find more than one in some sentences:

1. A new railroad is under construction.
2. By the time I got there, he’d gone.
3. Employees can buy books at a discount.
4. Everything had gone without a hitch.
5. By the way, how is Timilehin?
6. He is under treatment for malaria.
7. He took the purse from her by force.
8. She is on leave until the end of the month.
9. Anjola is the best by far.
10. Gbolahan tried to jump back on board.
11. The cat in the middle is the cutest.
12. I always buy my milk from the convenience store on Main Street.
13. My mother has always wanted to live in a cabin by the lake.
14. Nimota drank her coffee with fervor.
15. The army is on the move.

 

In our next class, we will be talking about Vocabularies Associated with Hotel and Catering.  We hope you enjoyed the class.

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