Prepositions

Basic Prepositions: Time and Place - at, in, on and to

A preposition describes a relationship between other words in a sentence. In itself, a word like "in" or "after" is rather meaningless and hard to define in mere words. For instance, when you do try to define a preposition like "in" or "between" or "on," you invariably use your hands to show how something is situated in relationship to something else. Prepositions are nearly always combined with other words in structures called prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases can be made up of a million different words, but they tend to be built the same: a preposition followed by a determiner and an adjective or two, followed by a pronoun or noun (called the object of the preposition). This whole phrase, in turn, takes on a modifying role, acting as an adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space, modifying a noun, or telling when or where or under what conditions something happened.

Prepositions of Time: at, on, and in

       We use at to designate specific times
       The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

      We use on to designate days and dates.
      My brother is coming on Monday.
      We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

      We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.
       She likes to jog in the morning.
       It's too cold in winter to run outside.
       He started the job in 1971.
      He's going to quit in August.
Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in

      We use at for specific addresses.
      Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Roadin Durham.

      We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.
      Her house is on Boretz Road  and we use in for the names of land-      areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).
     She lives in Durham.
     Durham is in Windham County.
     Windham County is in Connecticut.

Prepositions of Location: in, at, and on and No Preposition
IN (the) bed* the bedroom the car (the) class* the library* school*	AT class* home the library* the office school* work	ON the bed* the ceiling the floor the horse the plane the train	NO PREPOSITION downstairs downtown inside outside upstairs uptown
* You may sometimes use different prepositions for these locations.

Prepositions of Movement: to and No Preposition

      We use to in order to express movement toward a place.
     They were driving to work together.
     She's going to the dentist's office this morning.

    Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement.    
    These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you.
    We're moving toward the light.
    This is a big step towards the project's completion.

    With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition.
    Grandma went upstairs
    Grandpa went home.
    They both went outside.

Prepositions of Time: for and since

      We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years).
      He held his breath for seven minutes.
     She's lived there for seven years.
    The British and Irish have been quarreling for seven centuries.

     We use since with a specific date or time.
     He's worked here since 1970.
    She's been sitting in the waiting room since two-thirty.

Prepositions with Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs.

 Prepositions are sometimes so firmly wedded to other words that they have practically become one word. (In fact, in other languages, such as German, they would have become one word.) This occurs in three categories: nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

NOUNS and PREPOSITIONS
approval of awareness of belief in concern for confusion about desire for	fondness for grasp of hatred of hope for interest in love of	need for participation in reason for respect for success in understanding of

ADJECTIVES and PREPOSITIONS
afraid of angry at aware of capable of careless about familiar with	fond of happy about interested in jealous of made of married to	proud of similar to sorry for sure of tired of worried about

VERBS and PREPOSITIONS
apologize for ask about ask for belong to bring up care for find out	give up grow up look for look forward to look up make up pay for	prepare for study for talk about think about trust in work for worry about

A combination of verb and preposition is called a phrasal verb. The word that is joined to the verb is then called a particle. Please refer to the brief section we have prepared on phrasal verbs for an explanation.