Language of the Day: Prepositions
Today we’ll review prepositions which are a seemingly small but important part of a sentence!
Prepositions are words that show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. They often indicate direction, location, time, or introduce an object.
Although prepositions may appear to be a minor part of a sentence, they help us convey and understand the meaning of the sentence.
For example, if I say, “I’ll write an email to you,” the preposition “to” means that the email will be addressed to you and you will be the recipient of the mail.
Let’s look at more examples using the same sentence but with a different preposition to see how the meaning changes:
“I’ll write an email to you” - I am writing an email addressed to you; you are the recipient.
“I’ll write an email for you” - I am writing an email on your behalf, I am helping you or doing a favour.
“I’ll write an email from you” - I am writing the email, but the email will have your name on it and it will show that you wrote and/or sent it.
“I’ll write an email with you” - We will write the email together.
“I’ll write an email about you” - I will write an email and the topic of the email will be you.
“I’ll write an email by you” - I will write an email that was originally composed by you.
It’s interesting to see how much a simple preposition can completely change the meaning of the sentence!
The prepositions above, to, for, from, with, about and by are all simple prepositions.
Compound prepositions are prepositions combined with another word or words like an adjective, adverb, or another preposition. Here are some examples:
“I wrote an email in front of you” - You saw or witnessed me writing an email.
“I wrote an email in spite of you” - I wrote an email even though you discouraged it or didn’t approve, for example.
“I wrote an email instead of you” - I wrote an email that you were supposed to write or had originally planned to write.
