Subjects and Prepositions Parts of Speech Subjects and Prepositions

Review: Identifying subjects in sentences Subject: Who or what is doing the action Object: the thing that is acted upon by the subject

Strategy to find Subject Find the verb (action) in a sentence and first ask who? of the verb. If that doesn’t make sense, then ask what? of the verb.

Examples The Romans constructed military roads, aqueducts, bridges, and marble buildings. The verb is constructed. Who constructed? The Romans, which is the subject of the sentence.

Examples Does our vacation include seeing Pike’s Peak? The verb is does include. What does include? Our vacation, which is the subject. Recognize that there, here, and where are sentence starters and not subjects of sentences.

Example There are mysterious stone heads on Easter Island which stand 30 to 40 feet high Verb: stand What stands? Subject: Heads

If the sentence is a question Rewrite the question in the form of a statement

Example: Why does China have only one time zone? China does have only one time zone. The verb is does have. What does have? China, which is the subject

Example Here is the answer to the question . Subject: answer

Prepositions Usually indicates locations in space or time “Preposition talks about a noun or pronoun in its position”

Example During the prison uprising some guards were held hostage. During the prison uprising is a prepositional phrase. The subject is guards

Prepositions Always part of a prepositional phrase and show the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and another word or group of words in a sentence Prepositional phrases begin with preposition and end with noun or pronoun

Connection to the Subject The subject of a sentence cannot be in a preposition phrase

Examples People (with blue eye)s see better (in the dark.) It would take (over an hour) (for a heavy object) to sink 6.7 miles down (to the deepest part) (of the ocean) Prepositional phrase in in parentheses

Example Of the five longest rivers in world, the Nile is the longest. (Of the five longest rivers) (in the world) are two prepositional phrases. The subject is Nile

Commonly used prepositions Concerning Down During for From Inside In into Like Near Of Off On Onto Out Outside Over About At Above Across After Against Along Among Around   By Before Behind Below Beneath Beside Between Beyond Since Through Throughout To Toward Under Until Up Upon With Without Within

Common compound prepositions According to Across from Along with Aside from Because of Far from In front of In place of In spite of Instead of An account of On top of