Generic Phrases
Help With Prepositional phrases?
Jacob Riis was born in the little country of Denmark. He read about the opportunities which America offered young men. Please help me with these two examples and also please help me understand what prepositional phrases are, the problem is i really do not understand them!
Public Comments
- Prepositional phrases are (in parenthesis) Jacob Riis was born(in the little country)(of Denmark) He read(about the opportunities)which America offered young men. Prepositional phrases are hard to explain easily. There's a good sentence that they've been using for quite a while: The mouse was/is ______ the house. The blank could have the word "in" or "on" (or any other assortment of words). "In", "on", etc. are prepositions, and in that sentence, "(the) house" is the object of the proposition. A prepositional phrase starts with a preposition, and ends with its object. Prepositions can be more than one word as well. the "which" in "which America offered" is a relative pronoun, so don't worry about that.
- Prepositions are small words such as "with" and "into" that themselves are difficult to define in words. prepositions create a relationship between other words in a sentence by linking phrases to the rest of the sentence. "in the little country" "of Denmark" "about the opportunities" I'm not sure if "which America offered" is also a prep phrase...
- the prepositions to remember are aboard, about, above, across,after,against,along,among,around,at,before,behind,below,beneath,beside,between,beyond,but,by,down,during,except,for,from,in,inside,like,near,of, off, on, past,since,through,throughout,to,toward,under,underneath, until,upon,with,within,without
- Think-location; "where" did something happen? Prepositions are like: to, into, up/down, in/ out, of, about, around, beside, etc. They can also modify verbs, etc. Yahoo "prepositions/ prepositional phrases" for good examples. Also, check meaning of individual words in dictionaries by looking in the definition for the abbreviation "Prep." and an example. You will see if it can be used as a preposition. In your examples above, ask yourself: where was Jacob born? Answer: in the little country of Denmark. That will be your prepositional phrase. The next sentence is trickier, because your preposition is modifiying one of the subjects--opportunities. Your phrase will be: about the opportunities.
- 1. Quick definitions (preposition) # noun: a function word that combines with a noun or pronoun or noun phrase to form a prepositional phrase that can have an adverbial or adjectival relation to some other word 2. Example: "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go." "We go" is the main sentence: "We" is the the subject and and "go" is the simple predicate. Almost everything else is a series of prepositional phrases which show where we went and how we got there. I've capitalized the preposition in each phrase: "OVER the river," "THROUGH the woods," "TO Grandmother's house." "[R]iver," 'woods," and "house," are the objects of their respective prepositions. 3. In your sentence above there are two prepositional phrases: "IN the little country" and "OF Denmark." 4. There are many prepositions, and some words may be used as prepositions or they may not. Look for the little phrase that follows. For example, in the sentence "He fell down," "down" is not a preposition, nor in the sentence "He fell down hard," nor in the sentence "He fell down and hurt himself," but in the sentence "He fell DOWN the steps," it is a preposition, and "steps" is the prepositional object. 5. Here are some more examples: "Who lives IN a pineapple UNDER the sea?" "FROM the Halls OF Montezuma TO the shores OF Tripoli," "OVER the mountains, ACROSS the sea" "You put the lime IN the coconut, and call me IN the morning" Hope this helps.
