Recognize a prepositional phrase when you see one.
At the minimum a prepositional phrase will begin with a preposition and end with a noun, pronoun, gerund, or clause, the "object" of the preposition.
The object of the preposition will often have one or more modifiers to describe it. These are the patterns for a prepositional phrase :
* Preposition + noun, pronoun, gerund, or clause.
* Preposition + modifier (s), + noun, pronoun, gerund, or clause.
The examples of the most basic prepositional phrase :
* At Home
At = preposition : Home = noun.
* In Time
In = preposition : Time = noun.
* From Richie
From = preposition : Richie = noun.
Most prepositional phrases are longger, like these :
* From my grandmother
From = preposition : My = modifier : Grandmother = noun.
* Under the warm blanket
Under = preposition : the warm = modifiers : Blanket = noun.
At prepositional phrase will function as an adjective or adverb. As an adjective, the prepositional phrase will answer the question "which one?"
Example :
- The book on the bathroom floor is swollen from shower steam.
Which book? The one on the bathroom floor!
Remember that a prepositional phrase will never contain the subject of a sentence. Sometimes, a noun within the prepositional phrase seems the logical subject of a verb. Don't full for that trick! You will never find a sucject in a prepositional.
Example :
Neither of these look books contains the receipe for manhattan- style aquid eyeball stew.
- Cook books do indeed contain. In this sentences, however,cook books is part of the prepositional phares of these cook books.
Neither is singular, so you need the singular form of the verb, contains. If you incorrectly indentified cook books as the subject, you might write contain, the plural form, and thus commit a subject - verb agreement error.
