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Prepositions and adverbs

Learn what prepositions and adverbs are, and how to tell them apart.

Prepositions are words that show how a noun or pronoun is related to the rest of the sentence. They can show:

direction: to the school
place: in the bamboo
time: before the bell
a link between ideas: a lesson about numbers

From the story: "A kingfisher swept down, its wings an arrow of blue in the sunlight." In the sunlight tells you where.

Now the tricky part. Words like on, off, up and down can be a preposition in one sentence and an adverb in another. Same word, different job! So you can't tell just by looking at the word.

Here's the test from your book:

a preposition is always followed by a noun (its object)
an adverb tells you more about the action (the verb)

"She ran up the stairs." What comes after up? The noun stairs. So up is a preposition, showing where she ran.

"She rang me up." What comes after up? Nothing! It's not pointing to a noun; it tells you more about the ringing. So here up is an adverb.

Try it:

Sentence	Noun after it?	So it's a ...
The cat jumped onto the table.	yes: table	preposition
The children played outside until dark.	no	adverb
The helicopter was hovering above.	no	adverb

Always ask: is it followed by a noun?

A preposition is always followed by a noun; an adverb tells you more about the verb — and up, down, on and off do both.

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