+303.+ Have you noticed that all of these phrases, which we have been
studying and using as adjectives and adverbs, begin with a little word
like _of_, _with_, _from_, _in_, _at_ or _by_, which connects the phrase
with the word it modifies? We could scarcely express our meaning without
these little words. They are connecting words and fill an important
function. These words usually come first in the phrase. For this reason,
they are called _prepositions_, which means _to place before_.
Let us see what a useful place these little words fill in our language.
Suppose we were watching the play of some boys outside our windows and
were reporting their hiding place. We might say:
The boys are hiding _in_ the bushes.
The boys are hiding _among_ the bushes.
The boys are hiding _under_ the bushes.
The boys are hiding _behind_ the bushes.
The boys are hiding _beyond_ the bushes.
These sentences are all alike except the prepositions _in_, _among_,
_under_, _behind_ and _beyond_. If you read the sentences and leave out
these prepositions entirely, you will see that nobody could possibly
tell what connection the _bushes_ had with the rest of the sentence. The
prepositions are necessary to express the relation of the word _bushes_
to the rest of the sentence.
But this is not all. You can readily see that the use of a different
preposition changes the meaning of the sentence. It means quite a
different thing to say, _The boys are hiding in the bushes_, and to say,
_The boys are hiding beyond the bushes_. So the preposition has a great
deal to do with the true expression of our ideas.
The noun _bushes_ is used as the object of the preposition, and the
preposition shows the relation of its object to the word which it
modifies. You remember that nouns have the same form whether they are
used as subject or as object, but if you are using a pronoun after a
preposition, always use the object form of the pronoun. For example:
I bought the book from _him_.
I took the message to _them_.
I found the place for _her_.
In these sentences the pronouns, _him_, _them_, and _her_ are used as
objects of the prepositions _from_, _to_ and _for_. So we have used the
object forms of these pronouns.
+304+. The noun or pronoun that follows the preposition, and is used
with it to make a phrase, is the object of the preposition. The
preposition is used to show the relation that exists between its object
and the word the object modifies. In the sentence above, _The boys are
hiding in the bushes_, the preposition _in_ shows the relationship
between the verb phrase, _are hiding_ and the object of the preposition,
_bushes_.
The noun or pronoun which is the object of a preposition may also have
its modifiers. In the sentences used about the noun _bush_, which is the
object of the prepositions used, is modified by the adjective _the_.
Other modifiers might also be added, as for example:
The boys are hiding in the tall, thick bushes.
The entire phrase, _in the tall, thick bushes_, is made up of the
preposition _in_, its object _bushes_ and the modifiers of bushes,
_the_, _tall_ and _thick_.
+305+. The preposition, with its object and the modifiers of the object,
forms a phrase which we call a _prepositional phrase_. These
prepositional phrases may be used either as adjectives or as adverbs, so
we have our definitions:
+A preposition is a word that shows the relation of its object to some
other word.+
+A phrase is a group of words used as a single word.+
+A prepositional phrase is a phrase composed of a preposition and its
object and modifiers.+
+An adjective phrase is a prepositional phrase used as an adjective.+
+An adverb phrase is a prepositional phrase used as an adverb.+
+306.+ Here is a list of the most common and most important
prepositions. Use each one in a sentence:
above
about
across
after
against
along
around
among
at
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
between
beyond
by
down
for
from
in
into
of
off
on
over
to
toward
through
up
upon
under
with
within
without