Prepositional Phrase

Definition of Prepositional Phrase
Prepositional phrase is a group of words comprising a preposition, its item, and a modifier of the object. In an extended sentence, this word modifies verbs, nouns, clauses, and phrases.

A prepositional word commonly comes at the start of a sentence, even though it might also appear inside every other prepositional phrase. As a preposition can't stand alone, it desires a phrase to make a whole and coherent phrase. This phrase is called an object of a preposition.

For instance, within the sentence, “I became thinking that we all learn by way of experience, but some of us ought to visit summer season school” (The Tunnel of Love, by using Peter De Vries), “experience,” “us,” and “school,” are objects of prepositions, developing the propositional phrases.

Common Examples of Prepositional Phrase
Prepositional phrase functions as either an adjective word, or an adverb word, within a sentence.

Prepositional Phrase as an Adjective Phrase
The girl along with her is her daughter.
Here, “with” is a preposition, and together “along with her” is a prepositional word. It serves as an adjective word.

I have introduced a white canine with black paws.
“With” is a preposition and, as a whole, “with black paws” is prepositional phrase, performing the mission of an adjective word.

Prepositional Phrase As an Adverb Phrase
Sara looked below the desk for her book.
Here, the preposition “underneath” is grouped with the phrases “below the table,” to create a prepositional phrase.

When she were given to the airport, she employed a taxi.
“To” is the preposition and, as a whole, “to the airport” is a prepositional phrase.

Examples of Prepositional Phrase in Literature
Example #1: A Hanging (by using George Orwell)
“We walked out of the gallows backyard, beyond the condemned cells with their ready prisoners, into the large central yard of the prison.”

Orwell has employed prolonged prepositional terms in this example. Both are a modifying noun “gallows backyard,” acting the characteristic of a noun.

Example #2: Mr. Sammler’s Planet (by way of Saul Bellow)
“Shortly after dawn, or what would have been dawn in a everyday sky, Mr. Artur Sammler with his bushy eye took inside the books and papers of his West Side bed room and suspected strongly that they were the wrong books, the incorrect papers.”

In those lines, four prepositional phrases are underlined. Each word starts with a preposition – “after,” “in,” “with,” or “of” – and ends with an item of preposition.

Example #3: Walden (by E. B White)
“Next morning early I began afoot for Walden, out Main Street and down Thoreau, beyond the depot and the Minuteman Chevrolet Company. The morning changed into fresh, and in a bean discipline alongside the manner I flushed an agriculturalist, quietly analyzing his beans.”

White has used many prepositional phrases within the following lines. The first four phrases characteristic as adverb terms and the last one as an adjective word, editing a noun.

Example #4: Paul Clifford (via Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents – besides at occasional intervals, whilst it turned into checked by way of a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling alongside the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled towards the darkness.”

Lytton has used prepositional phrase running as an adverb phrase. All the terms are enhancing their respective items and adding essential facts to the text.

Example #5: Unreliable Memoirs (with the aid of Clive James)
“As proud mother and father sat open-mouthed on the surrounding benches, she came hurtling out of the lower back annex, alongside the corridor, thru the connecting door, into the hall, as much as the springboard and into space. She drove me into the ground like a tack.”

See at all of the underlined prepositional phrases. They are performing adverbial function, and enhancing and giving information about verbs. However, the final prepositional word is functioning as an adjective phrase, editing pronoun.

Function
The role of a prepositional word is giant due to the fact it allows the writers to provide entire information. In fact, many adverbial phrases occur in just a single sentence, as they're bendy in syntactic roles, enhancing sentence positions, and features. Also, prepositional terms provide essential data about questions starting with how, where, what, what kind and while etc. Besides, a prepositional word can also modify a sentence with additional details.

Prefix Present Participle