Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional phrases are groups of words containing prepositions. Remember that prepositions are words that indicate the relationships between various elements within a sentence, and you’ll never have difficulty identifying prepositional phrases.

A prepositional phrase is a group of words that lacks either a verb or a subject, and that functions as a unified part of speech. It normally consists of a preposition and a noun or a preposition and a pronoun.

Remember the following rules for prepositional phrases and you will find that using them becomes much easier.

Prepositional phrases always consist of two basic parts at minimum: the object and the preposition.

In formal English, prepositions are almost always followed by objects.

Adjectives can be placed between the prepositions and objects in prepositional phrases.

Prepositional phrases can act as adverbs or adjectives. When they are used as adjectives, they modify nouns and pronouns in the same way single-word adjectives do.

When prepositional phrases are used as adverbs, they at the same way single-word adverbs and adverb clauses do, modifying adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs.