Writing Exercise Two

(Prepositions)

Write a paragraph (a modified version of Narrative One) that describes your trip from home to the college. This time, however, some of your sentences must contain prepositional phrases. For example, some of these kinds of sentences are required:

I left my house early in the morning. The sun was shining in my eyes from the reflection on the stop sign across the street.

Notice how many prepositional phrases there are in the second sentence. It is common to have more than one prepositional phrase in most sentences. The basic form is as follows:

A Subject did something(Verb) plus a Preposition Phrase.

Ex: The Sun (S) was shining (V) in my face (PP). I closed my eyes against the glare. My eyes watered with tears. The tears flowed down my cheeks.

Meta-Narrative Two: Write an account of why it was easier to write in the Subject-Verb-Object form with Prepositional Phrases than in the S-V-O only form. Please note: every time you write an explanation, be specific. Pretend that the reader has not read your story; your explanation must be self-contained. It must tell everything without expecting the reader to go back and read the story that you are explaining.

Comments on Prepositions:

Of the top twenty most frequently used words in the English language, eight are prepositions. It is not difficult to figure out why when you think of what it is that prepositions do: they establish relationships. Prepositions position the subject in relation to other subjects: He is in the house on the left side of the street next to the factory. It is through prepositions that we express our relationships to the world.

The word preposition indicates that the word begins a phrase that we label a prepositional phrase (It is pre-positioned). It takes the form preposition plus noun phrase, ex: in the house, in the big white house, etc. A prepositional phrase can function in a sentence as an adjective (describing a noun) or an adverb (indicating qualities of a verb).

Preposition functioning as an adjective: The factory on the hill is hiring today.

For instance, we could also say: The on-the-hill factory is hiring today.

Preposition functioning as an adverb: We walked in single file.

The prepositional phrase "in single file" describes the way we walked.

Since prepositions can perform both functions, and since prepositions are so movable, there are possibilities for ambiguity; we can not easily determine a single meaning.

EX: They fought with a team of inspired players.

This sentence can be written in two different ways, with different prepositions, so that there is no ambiguity.

1— They fought against a team of inspired players.

2—Their team of inspired players fought.

Ambiguity is an interesting concept. We usually have trust in language; we believe words mean what they "say." Yet, how many words all by themselves have only a single meaning? Take a simple word like "home." What exactly does that word mean? All by itself, it is not possible to know. It could mean my house, my town, my country, my world. It has many other meanings because meaning depends on context.

What does "context" mean?

According to Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language the first meaning of context is "the parts of a sentence, paragraph, discourse, etc. that occur just before and after a specified word or passage, and determine the exact meaning, as, it is unfair to quote this remark out of its context." The second meaning is broader and more important for our purposes as writers: "the whole situation, background, or environment relevant to some happening or personality." But of all the meanings, I prefer the obsolete meaning: "to knit together."

Writing is a way of "knitting together" the meaning we establish through the voice in contact with other people together in such a way that the meaning is understood by an audience who is not in contact with our voice, whose only contact with us is through those little black marks, such as these I am making now, onto a piece of paper. Seen this way, "context" is determined by Voice, and to communicate in writing, a writer must find ways to compensate for this lack of Voice. There is no voice in writing; there is no audience. We must imagine an audience, and we must supply the context in writing that will substitute for the lack of audience. Context, then, becomes the most important idea that we can consider that will help us learn to be better writers.

When we knit something together, we do so according to some pattern. Understanding pattern is the key to understanding writing.

(If you have forgotten the most common prepositions, check out the list.)

Go to Sample use of Prepositions by the Master by Edwin Way Teale

Go to Note on the Writing Quest

Go to Writing Exercise Three

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