The Preposition

You can walk “on” this bridge or “across” it.  A bird may fly “over” the bridge, and water flows “below” it.

A preposition is a word or word team placed before a noun or pronoun to show its relationship to some other noun, pronoun or verb in a sentence.

Example: under the table.

Preposition: under

Object of preposition: table

Full sentence: The book is under the table.

Relationship between book and table = under.

As you can see from the above illustration, the preposition “under” shows the relationship between the “book” and the “table”.

In the sentences below, the prepositions are set in bold.

1. The car is in the garage.
2. The man is at the workplace.
3. The bird flew over the house.
4. The submarine travels under the seas.
5. The teacher talks to the student.
6. He put the paper between the books.
7. The tree fell into the river.
8. The boy plunged into the pool.
9. Strange creatures live below the surface of the sea.
10. The sky is above the earth.

All prepositions take an object. Example, in the prepositional phrase: over the house, the preposition is “over” and the object of the preposition is “house”.

What is the object of the prepositions in the prepositional phrases below? In the prepositional phrases below, the preposition is set in bold and the object of the preposition is underlined.

In the water

Under the sea

Below the mountain

Over the valley

Above the ground

Before the sea

After the houses

Here is a list of prepositions for your reference.

Please note: The list above may not include ALL the prepositions in the English Language.