+309.+ Things are not always to be judged by their size. Sometimes the
most important things are very small and unimportant in appearance. A
great machine is before you. You see its giant wheels, its huge levers.
These may seem to be the most important parts of the machine, but here
and there throughout this great machine are little screws and bolts.
These bind the giant parts together. Without these connecting links, the
great wheels and levers and revolving belts could not work together. Let
a little bolt slip out of its place in the mechanism, and the great
wheels stop, the throbbing machinery comes to a standstill. No work is
possible until this little bolt has been replaced.
So in our sentence building, the _preposition_ is the bolt that joins
words together. The importance of the preposition in a language
increases just in proportion as the nation learns to think more exactly
and express itself more accurately.
We found in our last lesson that by changing a preposition we can change
the entire meaning of the sentence. A man's life may depend upon the use
of a certain preposition. You may swear his life away by bearing
testimony to the fact whether you saw him _within_ the house, or
_without_ the house; or _before_ dark, or _after_ dark.
+310.+ The preposition is an important word in the sentence. We can use
it to serve our purpose in various ways. We have found, for instance,
that we can use it:
_First_, to change an adjective into an adjective phrase. As, for
example:
The _fearless_ man demands his rights.
The man _without fear_ demands his rights.
_Second_, to change an adverb into an adverb phrase. As, for example:
We want to possess _peacefully_ the fruits of our labor.
We want to possess _in peace_ the fruits of our labor.
_Third_, to express a meaning which we can express in no other way; as,
for example, _They are fighting for their country_. There is no single
word which we can use to express the meaning which we express in the
phrase, _for their country_.
+311.+ So the preposition has given us a new means of expression, _the
prepositional phrase_. We can, by its help, use a phrase in place of an
adjective to modify a noun or a pronoun, and in place of an adverb to
modify a verb or an adjective. And we can also use the prepositional
phrase to express relationship which we cannot express by a single
adjective or adverb.
If I want to tell you that I see a bird in yonder tree, such an
expression would be impossible without that little preposition _in_. By
the use of various prepositions, I can express to you the relationship
between the bird and the tree. I can tell you whether it is _under_ the
tree, or _in_ the tree, or _over_ the tree, or flying _around_ the tree,
or _near_ the tree. By the use of the various prepositions, I can
express accurately the relationship that exists between the _bird_ and
the _tree_.