How to Find a Prepositional Phrase

What Is a Preposition?

Have you ever been to a family reunion where everyone wears nametags with words like an aunt, uncle, cousin, grandma, and grandpa? These nametags express the relationships between the people at the reunion. Just as family titles are used to show people's relationships, a preposition is a word that relates. The job of a preposition is to show the relationship of two words in the sentence. Look at the illustration for some examples of prepositions. Notice that some prepositions are compound, which means they are made up of two or more words.

Ingredients of a Prepositional Phrase

A preposition will always appear in a prepositional phrase, so let's find out more about prepositional phrases. The prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with its object.

The object of the preposition can be a noun - a person, place, thing, or idea. It can also be a word or a group of words acting as a noun, such as a pronoun, verb phrase or clause. The object of the preposition completes the phrase, often answering the question 'what'.

For example:

He jumped on the bed. On what? On the bed.

A prepositional phrase can also have adjectives that modify the object.

Check out the prepositional phrases in the picture.

Functions of a Prepositional Phrase

The preposition relates words within the sentence. The prepositional phrase also performs a job in the sentence. You will find that prepositions can act either as adjectives or as adverbs in a sentence.

Adjective

When a prepositional phrase is functioning as an adjective, it modifies or describes a noun or pronoun.

When a prepositional phrase is used as an adjective, it is called an adjective phrase. It will answer one of these questions about the word it modifies:

• What kind?
• Which one?
• How many?
• How much?

Adverb

When a prepositional phrase is functioning as an adverb, it modifies or describes a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Remember, a verb is a word that expresses action or being.

When a prepositional phrase is used as an adverb, it is called an adverb phrase. It will answer one of these questions about the word it modifies:

• When?
• Where?
• In what manner?
• To what extent?
• Under what condition?
• Why?

Finding Prepositional Phrases

Now that we have an idea about what prepositional phrases are, let's see how many prepositional phrases we can find in this excerpt from a cooking blog.

How many prepositional phrases did you find? There are eleven. Let's look at them.

1. I know Grandma gave that recipe to me and my sister. . .
   The prepositional phrase is acting as an adverb, modifying the verb gave.
2. Before calling my sister, I searched. . .
   This is an adverb phrase, modifying the verb searched.
3. I looked between the cabinets. . .
4. . . . .in my recipe box. . .
5. . . . .behind the refrigerator. . .
6. . . . .and even under my bed.
   These four prepositional phrases are adverb phrases, modifying the verb looked.
7. . . . .the recipe for Grandma's cookies. . .
   This is an adjective phrase, modifying the noun recipe.
8. I called and told my sister about my problem.
   This is an adverb phrase modifying the verb told.
9. . . . .use the recipe on the container. . .
   This is an adjective phrase modifying the noun recipe.
10. . . . .container of oatmeal. . .
    This adjective phrase modifies the noun container. It is a prepositional phrase modifying the object of another prepositional phrase.
11. I think I found the secret of Grandma's cookies.
    This adjective phrase modifies the noun secret.