Jean Yates - Prepositions

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Debbie Edson at Barrons for the opportunity to create this third edition and for her guidance in the process; professor Marichu Bucelli for her examples of preposition usage in Spanish and Italian, and linguist and professor Bill Zolar for his examples of preposition usage in German, Italian, and Spanish.

Thanks also to the rest of the team at Barrons: Kathryn Malm Bourgoine, Megan Buckman, Joanna Graham, Lauren Manoy, and Angela Tartaro for their insightful suggestions and hard work, especially under difficult conditions during the pandemic.

Copyright 2020, 2011, 1999 by Jean Yates

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Prepositions pose more problems for the non-native speaker or learner of English than any other part of speech. Why? Prepositions are just little words that never change in form; they are pronounced softly, in unstressed syllables; they arent even given capital letters in book titles; native speakers choose the correct ones without thinking. How can they be confusing?

The word preposition has a straightforward definition: a word placed before a noun or pronoun to define its relationship with another word in the sentence. For the learner of English, however, prepositions are anything but straightforward.

Prepositions are difficult, if not impossible, to define without using other prepositions.

Example:

In the sentence, The book is on the table, what does on mean?

On means above and supported by.

In no other language are the prepositions (if they exist at all) the exact equivalents of English prepositions.

Examples:

Many preposition words can also be adverbs or conjunctions.

Examples:

Many prepositions can indicate more than one meaning or relationship.

Examples with after :

Two or more prepositions can have the same meaning. Sometimes these prepositions are interchangeable.

Examples:

She is disappointed in her new job.

She is disappointed with her new job.

Sometimes they are not interchangeable.

Examples:

He is fascinated with his new job. (but not in)

He is interested in his new job. (but not with)

He is bored by his new job. (by or with, but not in)

Many prepositions are also used in expressions where their meaning is entirely different from any of their predictable meanings. Expressions like this do not follow any pattern or logic, and do not allow for substitutions. They must be learned as vocabulary units.

Examples:

Its about time .

They are never on time .

She got here in time to see the whole show.

A preposition in combination with another word may have multiple meanings.

Example:

Different prepositions can follow the same verb to change its meaning completely.

Example:

New preposition combinations continue to become part of the language.

The following examples are relatively new:

Preposition words are sometimes made into other parts of speech.

Examples:

There are some regional differences in preposition usage among native speakers.

Examples: