They serve the purpose of acting like an adjective or adverb phrase in a sentence. This helps to modify words within sentences. These sentences usually start with a preposition and end with a noun, pronoun, or clause. We you are trying to identify these phrases in sentence look for words that modify others. Another way to spot a prepositional phrase is to realize that they are complete devoid of a subject. They will never be the portion of the sentence that contains the subject. These types of phrases are important to help us get a more vivid understanding of the subject. Prepositions show a relationship between different ideas within a sentence. Prepositional phrases contain the preposition itself, followed by its object and any modifiers.
The following collection of worksheets will give your students practice in identifying and construction each of the phrases. Activities include marking phrases within given sentences, identifying the objects within said phrases, noting where they are used as adjectives, and more. Answer keys have been provided for each worksheet for instructors. Fun Project Idea: Have your students perform the Schoolhouse Rock "Prepositions" song (available on YouTube) for extra reinforcement of the definition and use of prepositions.
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Printable Prepositional Phrases Worksheets
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A preposition shows a relationship between ideas in a sentence. They usually answer the questions where (i.e., there,beyond) or when (i.e., before, first), and tell you the location of a person or an object in time or space. They can often introduce a phrase that has several parts.
Combine each set of sentences into one. Make the
underlined part of each sentence into a prepositional phrase to
put at the carat (^). Add commas where needed.
Nine sentences are provided to give you more practice on identification and determining the purpose of the phrase.
What are Prepositional Phrases Used for?
A phrase is a group of words put together to mean something. However, it is not a sentence because it is not a complete thought. It might be a single word or several words working together.
Here are some examples of them:
- afternoon nap - feeding the baby - taking out the trash - counting to ten - waiting in line
As you can see, a phrase can be short or long or can be just a few words from a sentence. For example, the phrase "take out the trash" is four words taken from the sentence, "I need to take out the trash before the garbage truck comes."
Types of Phrases - The most common types are:
Nouns Form
It is a group of words that functions as a noun in a sentence. The most common type of noun phrase is a single word, but multi-word phrases can also be used as nouns. Adjectives and adverbs can modify noun phrases and can be used as the subjects or objects of verbs.
Adjective Form
An adjective phrase commonly functions as an adjective in a sentence. Adjective phrases typically modify nouns or pronouns, but they can also be used as the objects of verbs or prepositions. Like adjectives, adjective phrases can be single word or can be composed of multiple words.
Adverb Phrase Form
An adverb phrase functions as an adverb in a sentence. Adverb phrases typically modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, but they can also be used as the objects of prepositions. They can be made up of single word or several of them.
Verb Form
A verb phrase is usually a group of words that function as a sentence's verb. The verb form can be made up of a single verb or a combination of verbs, and adverbs can modify them. They can be used as the subjects or objects of other verbs.
Prepositional Phrase Form
It is a group of words that functions as a preposition in a sentence. Prepositional phrases typically modify nouns or pronouns, but they can also be used as the objects of verbs or other prepositions. They can be made up of a single or a whole bunch of them.
How Are They Used?
Prepositional phrases are often used to indicate the relationship between two nouns or pronouns. They can be used to indicate the location of something, the time when something happened, or how something was done. They can also be used to introduce adverbial information into a sentence.
For example, in the sentence "The cat is under the table," "under" is a preposition and "table" is its object. Another example would be "The party starts at 8 pm," where "at" is the preposition and "8 pm" is its object.
Structure
Prepositional phrases typically consist of a preposition and a noun or pronoun.
They can also be made up of multiple words. For example, in the sentence "I'm going to the store," "to the store" is a prepositional phrase.
The first word in this phrase, "to," is the preposition, and "the store" is its object.
They are usually placed after the noun or pronoun that they modify. However, they can also be placed before the noun. For example, "After class, we'll go to the library." In this sentence, "after class" is a prepositional phrase that modifies "we."
Note: Prepositional phrases can made up of just one word or several. However, they must always include a preposition. Without a preposition, a group of words cannot be considered a prepositional phrase. This means that phrases like "in front of" and "by means of" are prepositional phrases, but expressions like "in front" and "by means" are not.
Examples
The most common prepositions are "around," "about," "against," "above," "across," "after," "along," "among," "at," "before," "behind."