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Prepositional phrases are words, which establish a relationship between subject and verb by modifying the verb and noun. Read through this article to know more about prepositional phrases and their list.

Prepositional Phrases List

Known as the father of phrases, prepositional phrases are words which are extensively used, but rarely explored, in English vocabulary. Starting with a preposition and ending with a noun, pronoun, gerund or clause - the object of the preposition, they create a relationship between subject and verb by modifying the verb and noun. The significance of prepositional phrases arises from the fact that they provide details on location, things and people, time, relationship and ideas. They colour and uniform the sentences in powerful ways. They have two parts viz., preposition and an object of preposition, as you can see in the example 'behind the couch'. In this phrase, 'behind' is the preposition and 'the couch' is the object of preposition. Prepositional phrases are widely used in English and, while starting a sentence with a prepositional phrase, it is advisable to put a comma after that to separate it from rest of the sentence. But there are also cases when prepositional phrases are unnecessarily used in a single sentence. This can obscure the main subject and the action of the sentence. You can master the English language if you can identify and use these in your writing. It provides more information to a sentence that otherwise would have ended as a dull one.

Prepositional Phrase

Using Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases are words which begin with a preposition and end with a noun, pronoun, gerund or clause. Here are some examples of prepositional phrases:
There are cases when prepositional phrases act as either adverb (adverbial phrase) or adjective (adjectival phrase) as in these sentences. In this, adverbs describe verbs and adjectives describe nouns and pronouns.

Prepositional phrase as an adverbial phrase
Prepositional phrase as an adjectival phrase
As an adverb, prepositional phrase will answer questions such as where, when and how!
Always remember that prepositional phrases will not have the subject of the sentence.
You can connect two or more prepositional phrases with a coordinating conjunction such as, for, and, but, yet, nor and so.
Prepositional phrases do more than just adding minor details to a sentence. In fact, you can notice how vague a sentence becomes without a prepositional phrase.
After adding prepositional phrases, the sentence becomes,
Common Examples Of Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases are so common in conversational language that it is very difficult to distinguish them. Here are some of the examples:
Identifying Prepositional Phrases
The clue to recognising prepositional phrases is that neither the subject nor the verb will be part of these prepositional phrases. This can be understood from the following sentence: 'The coat on the chair is mine'. Once we eliminate 'on the chair', we can easily identify that 'coat' is the subject and 'is' is the verb.

Prepositional phrases generally act as complements and adjuncts of noun phrases and verb phrases as in these sentences:
A prepositional phrase must not be confused with the series formed by the particle and the direct object of a phrasal verb, as in the phrase, 'turn on the light'. This sequence is structurally different from a prepositional phrase. In this case, "on" and "the light" will not form a unit -'on' here is not a position- instead they unite independently with the verb "turn".