Prepositions

A.  Prepositions

Prepositions have been called the biggest little words in English. They are usually quite short and signification looking, but they have very important functions.

Only the prepositions change, but that is enough to change the meaning entirely. Prepositions are always followed by nouns (or pronouns). They are connective words that show the relationship between the nouns following them and one of the basic sentence element: subject, verb, object, or complement. They usually indicate relationship, such as position, place, direction, time, manner, agent, possession, and condition, between their objects and other parts of the sentence. Prepositional phrase usually provide information asked for by the question words who, what, where, when, why, how, and how long.

The noun or pronoun following the preposition is its object. A pronoun used in this preposition is always an object pronoun: me, you, him, her, it, us, and them. The prepositions plus its object is called the prepositional phrase.

Type of Preposition

A preposition can be classified into 6 types :

1.      Simple preposition

The most commonly used simple preposition are : after, at, by, for, from, of, over, or in, through to, until, under, up, with, etc.

Example :

a.       I saw him on Friday

b.      The book on the table

           

2.      Compound preposition

A compound preposition is a preposition witch is formed from noun, adjective or adverb and it is combined with preposition “be” (by) or “a” (on) , because of, in front of, in between, due to and on behalf of.

Example :

a.       He sits beside me

b.      I didn’t come because of the heavy rain.

c.       The book is in front of the clock

A.    Preposition of place and time

                                                       I.            Preposition of place

a.       In  (use in buildings,towns,cities, regions,countries and continents )           

e.g :

-          Eduardo is in the library

-          The dog is in the box

b.      On ( use on before streets and bodies of water )       

e.g:

-          My phone is on the table.

-          The boat is saling on the river

c.       At ( use at with street and addresses and may specific locations )

e.g :

-          I'm at school.

-          He is waiting at the bus stop

-          I used to live at 51 Portland street

d.      between  ( between describes a location between two points)

e.g:

-          The house is between two big streets

-          The prisoner sat between the police

-          The video store is between the bank and the post office

e.       Near ( near describes something close in the distance)         

e.g:

-          The parking lot near the sawmill

-          The professors office is near the chemistry laboratory

-          I hope there is a cash machine near the movie theatre

f.       next to ( next to describes something beside something else )          

e.g:

-          Her house is next to yours

-          The restaurant is next to the movie theatre

g.      Across from (across from describes something opposite, something else)

e.g :

-          Their house is across form bookstore

-          The post office is across form the police stations

h.      Under (under describes something that is below something else)

e.g:

-          The woman was sheltering under a tree

-          The ball is rolling under the car

i.        Over (over describes something that is above,something else)

e.g:

-          Her office is over a cafe

-          The airplane is flying over the ocean

                                                    II.            Preposition of Time

a.       In  (use in before years, seasons ,months,and,parts of the day)        

e.g:

-          Paris is beautiful in the springtime

-          The new post office will open in january

b.      On   (use on before days of the week and dates )

e.g :

-          Some store closed on Sunday

-          Rani will go to bandung on sunday

c.       At  (use at before a specific time of day and with the nouns noon; night and midnight )

e.g:

-          I don’t work at night

-          I usually start my work at 8.00 am

d.      From to (use from to with beginning and ending)    

e.g:

-          The library is open from  9.30 a.m to 5.00 p.m

e.       During ( use during with periods of time)    

e.g

-          The supermarket open late during the week

f.       Untill (use untill with ending times)

e.g

-          I’m going to life her untill graduate

-          The coffiee shop is open untill 9.00 p.m

g.      Before (use before to express and earlier even to time)

e.g :

-          I want to go to the mountains before summar is over

h.      After (use after to express a latter event on time)

e.g:

-          Let’s gets a bite after the movie

-          I like to meet my friends in town after class

B.     ARTICLES

The idenfinite article, a/an, is used with general nouns and nouns that have not been specified. A/an is used with singular count nouns.

a.       a/an (use a/an when you mention something for the firts time. Use a/an to talk about want of a group of things)

e.g:

-          That’s an old car

-          I think i see an apple on the table this morning

-          It just an event in history

-          This ia a beautiful town

b.      The (the definite article, the, is used with both count and noncount nouns. It shows that the nouns are specific, special, or unique )

e.g:

-          My town has an aquarium. The aquarium is on Baker Street ( the is used when an indefinite noun becomes definite as a result of being mentioned a second time)

-          The oldest building in my town is the library (the is use to talk about something specific, special, unique)

-          do you want to take the subway or the bus? (the is use when the speaker and the listener both know the thing or person being spoken of ) using the with names the are many differents rules for the use of the with names.

            People :

e.g :

-          The president of the United States (use the with tittles)

-          The queen of England

-          President Kennedy( don’t use the with tittles + name of specific people)

-          Queen Elizabeth 

Place :

            e.g :

-           Japan

-          Kobe

-          Argentina

-          Indonesia

Buildings:

            e.g :

-          The Eifel Tower (the is usually used with names of buldings)

-          The leaning Tower of Pisa

-          The Taj Mahal

Historical Events :

            e.g :

-          The Storming of the Bastille (the is used usually used with names of historical events )

-          The French Revolution

-          The fall of the Berlin Wall

Notes :

a.       Gunakan a ketika noun yang mengikuti berawalan dengan konsonan (b,c,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,m,n,p,q,r,s,t,v,w,x,y atau z)

e.g : a city, a factory

b.      Gunakan an ketika noun yang mengikuti berawalan dengan huruf vokal (a,i,u,e,o)

e.g: an apple, an island