127. THE PREPOSITION.

It has been shown (Gr. 25, pp. 39–41) that a preposition connects a substantive to some other word, and indicates a relation between them.

The preposition, although having little meaning in itself, is a very useful word in the sentence, as by it both variety and precision of statement may be obtained.

To obtain this precision of statement care must be taken to use the preposition that expresses the exact shade of meaning desired. This skill in the use of prepositions is acquired by practice. Certain words, however, having the prefixes ab (meaning from), ad (meaning to or for), and com (meaning with), are followed by prepositions having the meaning of the prefixes; for example:

ab: abduct from; absent from; absorb from; abstain from; abstract from.

ad adapt to or for; addicted to; address to; adhere to; adjacent to.

com: combat with; combine with; communicate with; compare with; comply with.

NOTE. The final letter of each of these prefixes sometimes changes in order to harmonize with the next letter in the word in which it is used:

ab: ab-duct from; a-vert from.

ad: ad-mit to; a-spire to; allude to; an-nex to; an-nounce to. com: com-pound with; con-tract with; col-laborate with; co-equal with.

As a rule, then, after words having these prefixes use a preposition having the same meaning as the prefix.

Many words, however, require a special preposition after them, and in a few instances the same word has widely

differing meanings when followed by different prepositions. Some of these words are noted in the following list:

ADDITIONAL RULES. Use in, on, at, and by as a rule to show rest; as, He stays in the house; on the porch; at the seaside; by the spring.

Use to, into, unto, toward, and from as a rule to show motion together with direction; as, He was going to the store; into the house.

Use between when speaking of two; among when speaking of more than two; as, He divided the apple between the two boys, and the orange among the three girls.

Use by to indicate the actor, and with to indicate the instrument; as, The boy was hit with a stone by his companion.

Use in when speaking of large cities, at when speaking of villages and hotels.

Avoid the use of of in such phrases as the capture of the colonel, the fear of wild animals, the love of God, etc. What two meanings may each of these phrases have? Such ambiguity may be avoided by the use of the possessive case or the use of a verb or participle; as, God's love; the fear shown by wild animals; the soldier whom the colonel captured.

Avoid the use of onto and off of. Although frequently heard,

these expressions are not warranted. Say "He got off the car and stepped on a slowly moving train." Say "I took it from him," not "I took it off of him."

In Parsing Prepositions we need only to state that the word is a preposition, and to point out the words between which it shows relation.

Exercises.

Ex. I. Use correctly in sentences the various prepositions mentioned on the preceding page.

Ex. II. Fill the blanks with appropriate prepositions:

Ex. III. How does the first sentence of each of the following pairs differ in meaning from the second?

Ex. IV. Parse all the prepositions in the poem "Seadrift," pages 330, 331.

128. THE CONJUNCTION.

There are four kinds of words that, besides their primary use in the sentence, serve as connectives; namely, copulative verbs, relative pronouns, conjunctive adverbs, and prepo

sitions.

In addition to these connective words, there is also the Conjunction, a word that is used chiefly to connect. (Gr. 26, pp. 42, 43.)

Conjunctions are used to connect (1) words and phrases of equal rank, (2) the members of compound sentences, (3) clauses to the elements they modify.

According to their use, conjunctions are divided into two classes, coördinate and subordinate. (Gr. 53, 46.) Coördinate Conjunctions connect the parts of a sentence so that they remain equal in rank; Subordinate Conjunctions connect the parts so that one becomes dependent upon the other. For example, if we connect the two sentences (1) He is industrious and (2) He succeeds with the coördinate conjunction and, we form a compound sentence the members of which are of equal rank; thus,

But if we connect these sentences with the subordinate conjunction because we change their rank so that one becomes an adverbial clause dependent upon the other; thus,

He succeeds

because

he is industrious.

The word that when used to introduce a noun clause is sometimes classed as a subordinate conjunction. It seems, however, to be used to give euphony to the sentence rather than to connect its parts, and may be classed as an Expletive. Thus,.

Correlative Conjunctions. Conjunctions often occur in pairs, the first one preparing the way for the second, and having no connecting power by itself.

Omit and from the first of the following sentences and as from the second, and note the loss of connection and of meaning:

These words taken together are called Correlatives, a word that means having mutual relation.

1 In the first sentence notice that both . . . and are coördinate correlatives, and that both may be omitted without changing the meaning, being merely introductory; but in the second so . . . as are subordinate correlatives, and so is an adverb and can not be omitted without changing the meaning.