Blogging Tips

This article will finish up the parts of speech with conjunctions, interjections and prepositions.

A preposition shows the relationship between a noun and a pronoun and another word in the sentence.

Prepositions can change the relationship between the words too.  Here are three examples of prepositions and how they change the relationship.

The flower on the table is a rose.
The flower beside the table is a rose.
The flower near the table is a rose.

The following is a list of common prepositions.  Note that some of them are compound prepositions because they contain two or more words.

Above, across, after, ahead of, before, behind, because of, beside, during, for, from, in addition too, near, next to, outside, past, through, under, upon, without, within, etc.

A prepositional phrase consists of the preposition at the beginning which ends with a noun.  Sometimes, modifiers come between the preposition and its object.

During history class we watched a film about Helen of Troy.

Both parts of the sentence in bold are prepositional phrases.

Some words can be either a preposition or an adverb.  To distinguish the difference remember a preposition is part of a prepositional phrase and an adverb stands alone.

Preposition: I saw the dog inside the fence.
Adverb: I saw the dog inside.

The second sentence has no object so the word inside is an adverb.

Remember School House Rock on Saturday mornings with, “Conjunction junction, what’s your function?  Hooking up words, phrases and clauses.”  Most of us loved those little skits and didn’t realize it was an education. 

A conjunction simply connects words or groups of words.

Coordinating conjunctions:  and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet.
Correlative: both/and, either/or, not only/but also, neither/nor, whether/or.

Conjunctions can connect verbs, adjectives or sentences.

Interjections are probably the easiest words to recognize because they express strong feeling or emotion.  Words like, Ouch!  and Stop!, are easy, but an interjection can also be a word like yes.  Yes, I agree.

Well that wraps up the parts of speech.  Most of us never diagram our sentences any more and we couldn’t understand why it was important in school to begin with, but it doesn’t hurt to know how the parts of speech work together so we can form meaningful, coherent sentences.