Prepositions

A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and some other part of the sentence.

Examples

• She goes to temple on Sunday.
• The river flows under the bridge.
• The letter was written by me with a pen.

• The meaning of the term 'preposition', means placing before.
• Thus a preposition is usually put before a noun or a pronoun.

Prepositions show us nouns in relation to the following :

place	The boy sat at his desk. The cat lay under the chair.
movement/direction	The man walked into the house. The dog chased the cat through the gate bars.
time	After school, we play football. We are going for a picnic on Monday.
agency	The tree was cut by the woodcutter. He cut the tree with an axe.
manner	The soldier does his duty with courage. She won the race with ease.

Preposition following words

It is interesting to see how the meanings change when different prepositions follow the same verb and form phrasal verbs.

Look at these phrasal verbs with break and called and other verbs :

break into (enter without permission)	The thief broke into the house.
break away (run away)	The dog broke away from my grip.
break down (fail)	The bus broke down on the way.
called on (meet)	I called on my friend last evening.
called for (ask)	The officer called for the report of the enquiry.
draw near (to approach)	The police officer was drawing near.
Fall out (to quarrel)	Some boys were falling out there.
Give in (to surrender)	Indira Gandhi never gave in.

Look at this list of phrasal verbs and their meaning :

Phrases	Meanings
call up	telephone
draw up	prepare
keep back	hide, conceal
keep up	maintain
keep away	remain absent
draw back	retreat
draw near	approach
give back	return
give up	leave
give away	distribute