Writing Refresher: Prepositional Meanings
The diagram shows the chief prepositions which express spatial meanings.
Most prepositions can be used in several different ways.
Over, for example, is found in:
the sense of position (The picture was over the door),
movement across (They climbed over the wall),
accompanying circumstances (We’ll talk over dinner),
orientation to the speaker (They live over the road), and
other meanings.
Other types of meaning include:
time (e.g. during the night),
cause (e.g. because of the fog),
method (e.g. with a spoon), and
possession (a pianist of talent).
In addition, there are many figurative uses involving prepositions:
He’s in a hole may literally mean what it says, or it may not (R. Quirk, et al., 1985).
A preposition - expresses a relationship of meaning between two parts of a sentence, most often showing how the two parts are related in space or time:
We sat on the bench.
They left at three.
Most of the common prepositions consist of only one word; they have no distinctive ending, and do not vary.
Several prepositions consist of more than one word.
Single-word prepositions include:
about, at, before, by, down, for, from, in, of, on, out, over, round, since, through, to, under, up, with
Multi-word prepositions include:
(two words) ahead of, because of, due to, instead of, near to; (three words) as far as, by means of, in accordance with, in spite of, on behalf of. The words in these prepositions do not vary freely, as they would in other circumstances. In spite of, for example, cannot change to *out spite of or *in spite for.
Source ⚜ More: Prepositional Phrases ⚜ Writing Basics & Refreshers
