Prepositions

A preposition is one of the most frequent hintless gaps in the open cloze, and an extra preposition is one of the most frequent errors in editing. Both tasks test the same thing: which word to the left of the preposition decides what it has to be, and whether there is to be one at all.

The line that brought you here

From editing: a line with an extra word after the verb.

A preposition after a verb, an adjective or a noun is rarely chosen by meaning. It is chosen by that word on its left, and for some of those words the answer to which preposition is: none. contact and research take their object directly, and the extra word here is not a wrong choice but a word that should not be there at all. Those three lines are settled; from here the question is which of several prepositions, and guessing will not do it.

The rule and the table

The word on the left comes in three kinds, and the preposition does not follow from the meaning. depend and insist mean quite different things and still share the same on, while keen and fond mean almost the same and take different ones: keen on, fond of. The only way to know the binding is to keep a list in view.

For some words, known among them, the same word with different prepositions names different things, and the cloze below tests exactly that choice of meaning, not whether you have memorised the table.

Adjectives, verbs and nouns bind a preposition equally tightly, and a student who has learned only the verbs loses marks on the adjectives and the nouns just as surely. The particle of a phrasal verb works differently: it changes the meaning of the verb itself instead of attaching to a word that already means something without it.

Phrasal verbs: there the particle and the verb make a new word together

The list above is the whole tool. It is needed three more times, in three other tasks.

The same preposition in three other tasks

Open cloze. Exactly one word goes in, there are no hints, and the preposition is decided by the same word on the left as in the table.

The list found all four pairs. It does not decide every case, though: some words take several prepositions, each with its own meaning, and then only the rest of the sentence can choose.

Cloze. Four prepositions to choose from, and there is no deciding without the whole sentence: the options on their own tell you nothing.

Word bank. The bank holds whole combinations rather than single words, and some of them are a trap not of word class but of the pair itself.

Three tasks, one and the same question: which word is on the left, and does it have a preposition at all. The list and the meaning are dealt with. A third source of advice is the first language, and it is not to be trusted.

The mirror-image error in reading and writing

This error is not an extra preposition but a foreign one: the English word requires one, the first language whispers another, and the word-for-word version almost always loses. Depending on something, consisting of something, being married to somebody and being interested in something travel into English automatically, and the automatic version goes wrong exactly where the binding of the two languages parts company.

The preposition is bound to the English word and not to its translation, and depend, interested, married and consist choose it themselves whatever the first language suggests. The same transfer happens in writing: a phrase rendered word for word produces depends from the weather or consists from three parts instead of depends on the weather and consists of three parts. One kind of preposition is still missing, and editing tests it: the preposition of time.

Time: in, on, at, or nothing

A time word takes its own preposition, and the exam tests it from both sides: the wrong one in a gap, an extra one in an editing line. First the choice.

The length of the stretch decides. in goes with years, months, seasons and parts of the day, on with a day or a date, at with a clock time and a few fixed expressions. Before this, next, last and every there is no in, on or at, because that word already places the time. Other prepositions stay where the sense needs them: since last winter, until next week, during this term are correct.

The last row is the one editing tests. on last Monday, in this morning and at every weekend each carry an extra word, the same kind of extra word as discuss about. at the weekend is the British form, and it is safe in the exam.

One last pass

A new text: a café changes its coffee supplier. Every error in it is a preposition in a slot that needs none, after a verb or before a time word, and some lines have no error at all.

Editing: a preposition with nothing to hold on to

Six more lines. Their errors sit in places the last pass never visited, so check each line word by word rather than looking for the shapes you have already met.

Three kinds of extra word, and each has its own check.

When to and a verb say why something is done, nothing stands in front of them. The parents stayed behind to help; for to help puts in a preposition that has no noun to belong to, so it is the word to strike.

Every preposition belongs to a word, so of two prepositions side by side, the one with no word to belong to is extra. In replied to the email the first preposition belongs to replied; in in the summer months it belongs to months. A second preposition next to it has nothing left to attach to.

Some fixed phrases take no of at all: there is no point in, worth the trouble, the reason why, and no doubt that when a whole statement follows. The of slips in from look-alikes, the point of the story, the cause of the delay, which really do take it; these four do not.

What to take away

Editing: the same extra preposition after an object that is already taken Open cloze: where the preposition is one of the most frequent hintless gaps Cloze: where four prepositions are settled only by the whole sentence Word bank: where the bank holds the whole combination, not a bare preposition