Prepositional Phrases

Lesson 3 Prepositional Phrases

 

 Essential Question

 

How can groups of words work together to give more information about other words in a sentence?


Grammar in the World

Prepositional Phrases.jpg

 

What Do I Know?

Take this interactive quiz to see how much you already know about prepositional phrases:

 

Building Blocks

Grammar is a complex system and structure of language. Mizzou Academy Grammar Lab spotlights one skill (or block) at a time, but it’s often helpful to see how a skill works together with other, related blocks to build the language structure as a whole. You may find the following resource topics helpful as context for this lesson:

 

Learn About Prepositional Phrases

A preposition is a small and mighty word. It gives more information about time, place, manner (how), and direction of the nouns and pronouns in the sentence. 

  • Some common prepositions are in, on, by, at, from, above, across, over, under, with (and there are many, many more). 
  • You can review the topic PREPOSITIONS in the Grammar Lab Group 1 for a list of prepositions and how they work.  

 

A phrase is a group of words that works together to give more information about a clause or sentence. Phrases do not contain a subject and verb, so they can’t stand on their own as a complete thought. Often, phrases provide extra information or context. They also make sentences more interesting. 

  • You can review the topic PHRASES in Grammar Lab Group 3 for a review of how phrases function. 


Prepositional Phrases

A prepositional phrase is a group of words consisting of 

  • a preposition
  • a noun or pronoun object of the preposition
  • and any words that modify the object

It shows the relationship between another word in the sentence and the object of the preposition.

That may sound confusing, but the main point is that prepositional phrases help you give more information about something else in the sentence. Without prepositional phrases in our sentences, our sentences would be boring and sometimes confusing; we need these phrases to help communicate the full story of what we want to say. 

For example, look at this sentence from the United Nations website, sdgs.un.org:

“The Sustainable Development Goals (noun, subject) build (verb) on decades of work by countries and the UN.” 

  • There are three prepositional phrases in this sentence:
    • on decades 
    • of work
    • by countries and the UN
  • The preposition “on” shows how the Sustainable Development Goals are related to decades.
  • The preposition “of” gives more information about those decades—of work. 
  • And, the preposition “by” gives even more information to show how this work relates to countries and the UN. 

Without prepositional phrases in this sentence, we would be left with this complete sentence that gives us very little information: 

  • The Sustainable Develop Goals build. 
    • Build on what? What kind? How? 
    • We will never know unless we add those prepositional phrases back in! 

Here is a tip to help you identify and learn to use prepositional phrases. 

 

Prepositional phrases often answer the questions which one, what kind, where, when, or how.

For example:

“Agenda 21 is a UN comprehensive plan of action to build a global partnership for sustainable development to improve human lives and protect the environment.” 

  • What kind of plan is Agenda 21? It is a plan of action to build a global partnership. 
  • Which global partnership does it address? A partnership for sustainable development to improve human lives and protect the environment.
  • Without the prepositional phrases in this sentence to give us more information, we are left with only: Agenda 21 is a UN comprehensive plan. 

“Now, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development Links to an external site. serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.”

  • Which high-level political forum is this? The one on sustainable development
  • What kind of forum is it? The central UN platform. 
  • How does it function? For follow-up and reviews.
  • What kind of reviews? Of the SDGs. 

You can see how the prepositional phrases in these sentences work together to add layers of information and more meaning to each sentence. 

As you write, take advantage of prepositional phrases to give readers more information about your topic.

Do I Get It?

Use the interactive exercise below to see how much you've learned about prepositional phrases: