prepositional phrases as postdependents of nouns and adjectives: And the following trees show prepositional phrases as postdependents of non-finite verbs and as predependents of finite verbs: Attempts to position a prepositional phrase in front of its head noun, adjective, or non-finite verb are bad, e.g. a. his departure on Tuesday b. *his on Tuesday departure a. proud of his grade b. *of his grade proud a. He is leaving on Tuesday. b. *He is on Tuesday leaving. The b-examples demonstrate that prepositional phrases in English prefer to appear as postdependents of their heads. The fact, however, that they can at times appear as a predependent of their head (as in the finite clauses above) is curious. Function More often than not, a given adpositional phrase is an adjunct in the clause or noun phrase that it appears in. These phrases can also, however, function as arguments, in which case they are known as oblique: a. She ran under him. - Adjunct at the clause level b. The man from China was enjoying his noodles. - Adjunct in a noun phrase. c. He gave money to the cause. - Oblique argument at the clause level d. She argued with him. - Oblique Argument at the clause level e. A student of physics attended. - Argument in a noun phrase Particles A prepositional phrase should not be confused with a sequence formed by the particle and the direct object of a phrasal verb. Phrasal verbs often consist of a verb and a particle, whereby the particle is mistakenly interpreted to be a preposition, e.g. a. He turned on the light. - on is a particle, not a preposition b. He turned it on. - Shifting identifies on as a particle a. She made up a story. - up is a particle, not a preposition b. She made it up. - Shifting identifies up as a particle a. They put off the party. - off is a particle, not a preposition b. They put it off. - Shifting identifies off as a particle. Particles are identified by shifting, i.e. the particle can switch places with the object when the object is a pronoun. Prepositions cannot do this, i.e. they cannot switch positions with their complement, e.g. He is relying on Susan vs. *He is relying her on. See also Adjunct Adposition Argument Dependency grammar Head Phrase Phrase structure grammar Preposition Notes References Brinton,