Education

preposition

Definition:

A word (one of the parts of speech and a member of a closed word class) that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. See the list of simple prepositions below.

The combination of a preposition and a noun phrase is called a prepositional phrase. A word group (such as in front of or on top of) that functions like a simple, one-word preposition is called a complex preposition.

Prepositions convey the following relationships: agency (by); comparison (like, as . . . as); direction (to, toward, through); place (at, by, on); possession (of); purpose (for); source (from, out of); and time (at, before, on). See Observations, below.

Simple Prepositions:

aboard
about
above
across
after
against
along
amid
among
around
as
at
atop
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
between
beyond
by
despite
down
during
for
from
in
inside
into
like
near
of
off
on
onto
out
outside
over
past
regarding
round
since
than
through
throughout
till
to
toward
under
unlike
until
up
upon
with
within
without

Etymology:

From the Greek, "put in front"

Examples:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty."
(Edward R. Murrow)

"Yes, I lied to you. Of course it makes you look fat. I've never been to Brussels. It is pronounced 'egregious.' By the way, no, I've never met Pizzaro, but I love his pies. And all of this pales to utter insignificance in light of the fact that my ship is once again gone."
(Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2007)

"To this day, I remain impressed by the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage."
(Bill Bryson, Notes From a Small Island. Doubleday, 1995)

"[Miss] Piggy is certainly hard, but that's just part of the job. I don't even think about it. She's also hard because I have to reach down into the feminine part of myself and bring that up. It's not just the surface with her. There are a lot of neuroses in her. So I have to come from a different place with Piggy."
(Frank Oz)

"[H]e was there on some chance of feeling the brush of the wing of the stray spirit of youth."
(Henry James, The Ambassadors, 1903)

Dr. Wilson: Beauty often seduces us on the road to truth.
Dr. House: And triteness kicks us in the nads.
(House M.D.)

The Lighter Side of Prepositions
Brent LeRoy: I'm not up on that new stuff.
Wanda Dollard: You're not up on it? Or you're not into it?
Brent LeRoy: I might be into it, if I was up on it. But I'm not up on it, so I'm not into it. What I'm into, I'm up on.
Lacey Burrows: I'm mostly into what I'm up on, but even though I'm not up on the new stuff, I'm sort of into it.
Brent LeRoy: I'm down with that.
Wanda Dollard: Prepositions are fun, aren't they?
Brent LeRoy: What's a preposition?
(Brent Butt, Nancy Robertson, and Gabrielle Miller in Corner Gas, 2005)

Deverbal Prepositions
Transitive prepositions that take the same form as -ing participles or -ed participles are called deverbal prepositions. . . .

according (to)
allowing (for)
barring
concerning
counting
excepting
excluding
failing
following
given
gone
granted
including
owing (to)
pertaining (to)
regarding
respecting
saving
touching
wanting

(Bas Aarts, Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 2011)

Observations:

"It is important to be aware that some words that have the form of a preposition do not have the same function.
The girl read in the library
The rioters kicked in the door.
The form of the preposition in is identical in each case, but the function is different. In the first sentence, in describes where the girl is reading--it is therefore a preposition of place. In the second sentence, however, in is directly related to the verb kicked--in this case, it is called a particle."
(Sara Thorne, Mastering Advanced English Language. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

Uses of the Prepositions of, to, and by
In English, three prepositions, namely of, to and by, play roles closely integrated with case and the grammatical structure of clauses. Thus:
- of is associated with a variety of possessive or (loosely speaking) 'genitive' constructions, as in the book of the teacher, the arrival of the ferry and the mortification of the flesh
- to is a marker of indirect objects or 'dative case,' as in We donated our earnings to the Dog and Cat Home
- by marks the noun phrase is a passive clause corresponding to the subject of the related active clause, as in We were ruined by the currency speculators or Our ruination by the currency speculators.
(James R. Hurford, Grammar: A Student's Guide. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994)

Preposition Problems
"Learners seem to make mistakes with prepositions for various reasons.

"Some of these reasons have to do with English itself: For example, a learner may say by random instead of at random, because by and at are sometimes similar in meaning, and/or because random and chance can be similar in meaning (e.g. a random result ~ a chance result), or because the phrases by chance and at random are similar enough in meaning to induce unintentional cross-association (~ 'cross-swapping') of words. . . .

"More often perhaps, mistakes stem from differences between English and the mother tongue. For instance, Japanese has postpositions not prepositions (and not many of them) while Korean has no such words at all."
(Seth Lindstromberg, English Prepositions Explained, 2nd ed. John Benjamins, 2010)

Terminal Prepositions
"The Preposition at the end of a sentence; a common fault with [Ben Jonson], and which I have but lately observ'd in my own writings."
(John Dryden)

"Those who lay down the universal principle that final prepositions are 'inelegant' are unconsciously trying to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource, which has been used freely by all our greatest writers."
(Henry Fowler, Modern English Usage, 1921)

Texan: Where are you from?
Yale student: I come from a place where we don't end our sentences with prepositions.
Texan: Okay. Where are you from, jackass?