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The following are single-word prepositions that take clauses as complements. Prepositions marked with an asterisk in this section can only take non-finite clauses as complements. Note that dictionaries and grammars informed by concepts from traditional grammar may categorize these conjunctive prepositions as subordinating conjunctions.
English prepositions are words – such as of, in, on, at, from, etc. – that function as the head of a prepositional phrase, and most characteristically license a noun phrase object (e.g., in the water). [1]
English also makes frequent use of constructions traditionally called phrasal verbs, verb phrases that are made up of a verb root and a preposition or particle that follows the verb. The phrase then functions as a single predicate. In terms of intonation the preposition is fused to the verb, but in writing it is written as a separate word.
Preposition stranding or p-stranding is the syntactic construction in which a so-called stranded, hanging, or dangling preposition occurs somewhere other than immediately before its corresponding object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The term preposition stranding was coined in 1964, predated by stranded preposition in 1949.
If you don't eat for a long time, you become hungry. If the alarm goes off, there's a fire somewhere in the building. If you are going to sit an exam tomorrow, go to bed early tonight! If aspirins will cure it, I'll take a couple tonight. If you make a mistake, someone lets you know.
When a whole sentence is mentioned, double quotation marks may be used instead, with consistency (The preposition in She sat on the chair is on; or The preposition in "She sat on the chair" is "on"). Quotation marks may also be used for shorter material to avoid confusion, such as when italics are already heavily used in the page for another ...
A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History, a 1995 non-fiction book by David Rohl; Tests of Time, a 2002 non-fiction book by William H. Gass; The Test of Time: The Sixth Journey Through Time, a 2013 chapter book by Elisabetta Dami; the sixth installment in The Journey Through Time sequence, part of the Geronimo Stilton series
the subject of a clause: "To err is human" or "To know me is to love me." the object of a predicative expression: "What you should do is make a list" or "To know me is to love me". Adverbially: to express purpose, intent or result, as the to-infinitive can have the meaning of in order to, e.g. "I closed the door [in order] to block out any noise."