Used alone, prepositions don't have much meaning. Instead, prepositions make the meaning
of other words clearer. How do they do this? Prepositions show relationships
between words. Here are
some examples of the preposition of and some of these relationships:
Possible Meaning
|
Example
|
Chinese
|
Amount? 分量
|
A
cup of tea
|
一杯茶
|
Location? 位置
|
The
United States of
America
|
美利堅共和國
|
Belongs to? 隸屬
|
The
Queen of England
|
英國女王
|
Said by? 某人說的
|
The
Analects of Confucius
|
論語
|
Here is a list of common prepositions: about,
above, across, after, against, along, amid, among, around, as, at, before,
behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but, by, down,
during, for, from, in, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, past, save, since,
through, to, toward, under, unlike, until, up, upon, via, with
Prepositional
phrases (PP) are
made of a preposition (Prep) followed by a noun phrase (NP). Tree diagrams are
word pictures. They can help us understand the relationships between words in a
sentence.
 |
| Tree Diagram for "A cup of tea" = [NP [NP A cup] [PP of tea]] |
 |
| Tree Diagram for "The United States of America" =
[NP [NP The United States] [PP of America]]
|
 |
| Tree Diagram for "The Queen of England" = NP [NP The Queen] [PP of England]] |
 |
| Tree Diagram for "The Analects of Confucius" = [NP [NP The Analects] [PP of Confucius]] |
