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Finding Prepositional Phrases
Practice Exercise # 2
Directions: Place parentheses ( ) around every prepositional
phrase.
| The text is: |
| One student's prayer:
"Now I lay me down to rest, And hope to pass tomorrow's test. If I should
die before I wake, that's one less test I have to take." |
| Work your way through the text one sentence
at a time. |
Sentence #1
| Identify all the prepositional phrases. |
| One student's prayer:
"Now I lay me down to rest, And hope to pass tomorrow's test. |
Note that "rest" and "pass" are verbs, so "to
rest" and "to pass" are not prepositional phrases. ["To" plus a verb is
an infinitive, but you are not expected to remember that.]
(I can see some students
considering "rest" as a noun here, and thus considering "to rest" as a
prepositional phrase. I would not count that answer as wrong.)
We are finished with
the first sentence. |
Sentence #2
| Identify all the prepositional phrases
in the next sentence:. |
| If I should die before I wake, that's one less test I
have to take." |
"Before" can be a preposition, but if we ask the question "Before what?"
here, the answer is "I wake." "I wake" can be the core of a sentence, as
in "I wake up early," so "Before I wake" is not a prepositional phrase.
"Take" is a verb, so "to take" is not a prepositional phrase.
That means that there are no prepositional
phrases in this sentence, and we are done with it. |
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