hey grammarians let's talk about
prepositional phrases and what they are
and how they're used
their care and feeding you know so a
prepositional phrase simply speaking is
anything that follows a preposition
frankly so if we look at the sentence
Danielle blew the horn with the strength
of a giant quick little doodle there
there's Danielle blowing the horn with
the strength of a giant so this part
with the strength of a giant is a
prepositional phrase actually it's two
prepositional phrases because there's
with the strength and then of a giant
what is a prepositional phrase it is a
word chunk that begins with a
preposition so with is a preposition of
as a preposition and this entire thing
with the strength of a giant is one
prepositional phrase all together
composed of two smaller ones and what's
cool is you can use prepositional
phrases in a couple of different ways
you can use them as nouns you can use
them as adverbs and you can use them as
adjectives so we've got two different
examples here just even within this
first this first sentence here so so
Danielle blew the horn with the strength
of a giant how did she blow the horn
with the strength of a giant right so
she blew the horn with the strength of a
giant so with the strength of a giant um
this prepositional phrase is modifying
the verb blew and when you can really
see like she's her hair is being blown
back just by the strength of this like
right so so this whole thing together is
being treated as an adverb but if we
look at the word strength strength is
being modified by of a giant so this is
a noun
right the word strength is a noun but
this of a giant thing is modifying it so
this part is actually behaving as an
adjective kind of cool right let's look
at some more
examples to steal the Queen's diamonds
would be a terrible crime this is
actually something we'd call in addition
to being a prepositional phrase this is
something we'd call an infinitive the
verb to steal when it's presented like
this with the to form never conjugates
it's not affected by time so it's kind
of infinitive and infinite but we're
treating this whole thing as a noun
right because to steal the Queen's
diamonds is kind of all being considered
one thing this big old prepositional
phrase would write to steal the Queen's
diamonds would be a terrible crime so
this prepositional phrase is acting like
a noun let's try another one
I don't know that is I just made it up
but it let's pay attention to how the
prepositional phrase of glass works in
the rest of the sentence you know what
what part of this is it attached to it's
not I of glass or enjoy of glass it's
the Cathedral of glass and that means
that this of glass thing is describing
Cathedral a Cathedral is a place or a
structure so it's a noun right so if of
glass is modifying this noun that would
make it an adjective so of glass here
this prepositional phrase is behaving
like an adjective prepositional phrases
can be really powerful and really
elegant and really cool like in Hamlet
in the to be or not to be speech Hamlet
describes death as the undiscovered
country from whose Bourn no traveler
returns and Bourn is an early modern
English word meaning like boundary what
Hamlet is saying in the soliloquy is
that death is a mystery and people don't
come back from it and I think that's
like a really powerful use of a
prepositional phrase right all of this
is describing country in a way that
undiscovered is also doing so country is
is being modified from both sides which
is really cool and it imbues the word
country with a really strange power but
you have to be careful because you can
set yourself up for a lot of ambiguity
with prepositional phrases you may
remember this terrible joke from Mary
Poppins one man says all new a man with
a wooden leg named Smith other guy says
but what was the name of his other leg
right it's it's silly but it's it's a
good way to indicate where confusion can
arise with prepositional phrases you
know so I would I would say generally
that the solution to a problem like this
is to just put the named Smith part
earlier in the sentence I knew a man
named Smith who had a wooden leg maybe
lose the prepositional phrase that
solves the problem what I'm trying to
say is prepositional phrases are very
powerful but you have to be careful
about how you use them because if you're
not careful you can create confusion or
ambiguity anyway you can learn anything
sorry for the terrible cockney accent
David out