A preposition describes a relationship between other words in a sentence. In itself, a word like "in" or "after" is rather meaningless and hard to define in mere words. For instance, when you do try to define a preposition like "in" or "between" or "on," you invariably use your hands to show how something is situated in relationship to something else. Prepositions are nearly always combined with other words in structures called prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases can be made up of a million different words, but they tend to be built the same: a preposition followed by a determiner and an adjective or two, followed by a pronoun or noun (called the object of the preposition). This whole phrase, in turn, takes on a modifying role, acting as an adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space, modifying a noun, or telling when or where or under what conditions something happened.
Consider the professor's desk and underline all the prepositional phrases.You can sit before the desk (or in front of the desk). The professor can sit on the desk (when he's being informal) or behind the desk, and then his feet are under the desk or beneath the desk. He can stand beside the desk (meaning next to the desk), before the desk, between the desk and you, or even on the desk (if he's really strange). If he's clumsy, he can bump into the desk or try to walk through the desk (and stuff would fall off the desk). Passing his hands over the desk or resting his elbows upon the desk, he often looks across the desk and speaks of the desk or concerning the desk as if there were nothing else like the desk. Because he thinks of nothing except the desk, sometimes you wonder about the desk, what's in the desk, what he paid for the desk, and if he could live without the desk. You can walk toward the desk, to the desk, around the desk, by the desk, and even past the desk while he sits at the desk or leans against the desk.
All of this happens, of course, in time: during the class, before the class, until the class, throughout the class, after the class, etc. And the professor can sit there in a bad moodPrepositions of Time: at, on, and in
1. We use at to designate specific times.
The train is due at 12:15 p.m.
2. We use on to designate days and dates.
My brother is coming on Monday.
We're having a party on the Fourth of July.
3. We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.
She likes to jog in the morning.
It's too cold in winter to run outside.
He started the job in 1971.
He's going to quit in August.
Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in1. We use at for specific addresses.
Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.
2. We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.
Her house is on Boretz Road.
3. And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).
She lives in Durham.
Durham is in Windham County.
Windham County is in Connecticut.
Prepositions of Movement: to
and No Preposition
1. We use to in order to express movement toward a place.
They were driving to work together.
She's going to the dentist's office this morning.
2. Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement. These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you.
We're moving toward the light.
This is a big step towards the project's completion.
3. With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition.
Grandma went upstairs
Grandpa went home.
They both went outside.
Prepositions of Time: for and since1. We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years).
He held his breath for seven minutes.
She's lived there for seven years.
The British and Irish have been quarreling for seven centuries.
2. We use since with a specific date or time.
He's worked here since 1970.
She's been sitting in the waiting room since two-thirty.
Exercises1. My friend lives _______ Brazil Road.
2. I will be ready to leave ______ about twenty minutes.
3. The child reacted to her mother’s demands ________ throwing a tantrum.
4. I think she spent the entire afternoon __________ the phone.
5. I am not interested ______ buying a house right now.
6. My husband is named _________ his father.
7. My birthday is ________ 19th May.
8. I was visiting my friend ________ the hospital.
9. There is more and more violent _______ the television.
10. I go to work _______ car.
