Prepositional phrases

Phew! That's a lot of prepositional phrases with different meanings that we've just skimmed through!

Why don't you take a moment to skim over everything you've written so far and see how many different ways you've used prepositions, then come back here.

What do you notice?

• Prepositions are usually single words, although they can also be small word groups
• Prepositions (so far) always introduce noun groups
• Prepositional phrases can appear in different positions within a sentence (or clause), but most often at the end
• Prepositional phrases communicate all sorts of relationships between things and actions

Again, the point of this lesson is not to memorise all these different prepositions and meanings. Our goal is to make you aware of how prepositions and prepositional phrases work so that when you are analysing writing—whether your own or somebody else's—you will have greater insight and skill.

In the next part of this lesson, we are going to turn up the heat and look at some more slippery and complex aspects of prepositions.