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Finding Prepositional Phrases
Practice Exercise # 7
Directions: Place parentheses ( ) around every prepositional
phrase.
| The text is: |
| Angie and her four-year
old brother, Joel, were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang
and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had had enough. "You're not
supposed to talk out loud in church." "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel
asked. Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See those two
men standing by the door? They're hushers." |
| Work your way through the text one sentence
at a time. |
Sentence # 1
| The first sentence has only one prepositional phrase: |
| Angie and her four-year old
brother, Joel, were sitting together (in church). |
Sentence # 2
| The second sentence presents a minor problem. Technically, "loud" is
not a noun or pronoun, so "out loud" is not a prepositional phrase. Some
students will, I am sure, mark it as such, and I will not count that as
an error. We'll let the grammarians argue about the problem. In either
case, "out loud" clearly chunks to "talked." |
| Joel giggled, sang and talked out loud. |
Sentence # 3
| The third sentence does not have any prepositional phrases. |
| Finally, his big sister had had enough. |
Sentence # 4
| The fourth sentence has one prepositional phrase. (Since "talk" is
a verb, "to talk" is not a prepositional phrase.) |
| "You're not supposed to talk out loud (in
church)." |
Sentence # 5
| There are no prepositional phrases in the fifth sentence. (Since "stop"
functions as a verb here, "to stop" is not a prepositional phrase.) |
| "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked. |
Sentence # 6
| In what I have counted as the sixth and last sentence, there are three
simple prepositional phrases. |
| Angie pointed (to the back)
(of the church) and said, "See those two men standing (by
the door)? They're hushers." |
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