Ready for Another Serving of Prepositions?

Have you memorized the list of prepositions yet? Trust me, quickly recognizing prepositions will help you in the long run because we’ll be layering more grammar knowledge based on the use of prepositions.

In the last post, we studied prepositions and prepositional phrases. Remember, a phrase is a group of connected words that doesn’t contain a subject or a verb.

This time we’ll discuss subordinate clauses that begin with prepositions.

A clause is a group of words that contain a subject and a verb. Clauses can be independent or dependent. An independent clause can stand by itself. A dependent or subordinate clause cannot stand alone. It’s dependent on an independent clause.

For example, until the dam broke is a dependent clause. It’s a fragment if not attached to an independent clause.

After, as, before, since, and until are prepositions that can be used as subordinating conjunctions. If the clause appears at the beginning of the sentence, use a comma after. If it appears at the end of the sentence, don’t use a comma.

Until the dam broke, the lake was a great place to sail.

The lake was a great place to sail until the dam broke.

Keep memorizing those prepositions. They’ll be handy for future reference.

Happy writing!