Plain English Part 8

+43.+ +A p.r.o.noun is a word that is used in place of a noun.+

These p.r.o.nouns are very useful little words. They save us a great deal of tiresome repet.i.tion. Notice the awkwardness of the following:

The workers will succeed in gaining the workers' freedom if the workers learn solidarity.

And yet this would be the way we would have to express this idea if we did not have p.r.o.nouns. Instead we say:

The workers will succeed in gaining their freedom if they learn solidarity.

+44.+ We will study the p.r.o.noun in detail in later lessons, but we can readily recognize these words which are used in place of nouns. The most common p.r.o.nouns are:

I you he she it we they me him her us them my your his her its our their that which who whose whom what

Exercise 3

Underscore the p.r.o.nouns in the following story:

A man in South Africa picked up a small piece of stone. It was dirty and Rough.

"Make me beautiful," said the stone.

"I shall have to hurt you," said the man.

"Well, if it hurts me, I will bear it," said the stone.

So the man took it to a clever craftsman, who put it into a tight vise, and cut it with his sharp instrument.

"Oh!" cried the stone.

And he ground it till the dust fell all about it.

"Oh!" cried the stone.

And he polished it very hard.

"Oh!" cried the stone.

And then he set it in a crown and sent it to the Queen. On a sunny day she wore her crown, and the stone--it was a diamond--sparkled in long rays of crimson and green and yellow and silvery white. And all the people greeted their queen. She showed them her crown and they praised the beautiful stone.

The training was hard, but the improvement was glorious.

PREPOSITIONS

+45.+ Notice the following sentences:

I want the book _on_ the box.

I want the book _under_ the box.

I want the book _in_ the box.

I want the book _beside_ the box.

I want the book _behind_ the box.

I want the book _beyond_ the box.

Do you notice any word in these sentences which does not belong to any of the cla.s.ses of words which we have studied? _I_ is a p.r.o.noun, _want_ is a verb, _the_ is an adjective, _book_ is a noun, _the_ is an adjective, _box_ is a noun; but the words, _on_, _under_, _in_, _beside_, _behind_ and _beyond_ are not nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or p.r.o.nouns.

Yet would it be possible to express the meaning in these sentences without these words? Read the sentences without them, and you will see that no one could tell the relation which you wish to express between the _book_ and the _box_. And you will notice too that each word expresses a different relation, for it means one thing to say _on the box_ and another thing to say _in the box_, and so through the list.

+46.+ The words which are used to show this relation are called _prepositions_. The groups of words introduced by the preposition, like _on the box_ and _in the box_, and so on, are called prepositional phrases. The noun which follows a preposition as _box_ follows the prepositions _in_, _on_, _beside_, _beyond_, etc., is called the _object_ of the preposition.

_Preposition_ is a word which comes into our language from the Latin. It is formed from the Latin _pre_, which means _before_, and the Latin verb which means _to place_, so preposition means literally _to place before_. It is given this name because it is placed before the noun or p.r.o.noun which is its object. Therefore our definition of a preposition is as follows:

+47.+ +A preposition is a word that shows the relation of its object to some other word.+

+48.+ Either a noun or a p.r.o.noun may be the object of a preposition.

Notice the following sentences:

Bring the book to me.

Lay the book on the table.

He will speak to you.

I will speak to the man.

In these sentences the noun _table_ is the object of the preposition _on_; the p.r.o.noun _me_ is the object of the preposition _to_; and in the last two sentences the p.r.o.noun _you_ and the noun _man_ are the objects of the preposition _to_.

+49.+ There are not many prepositions in the language and they are easily learned and easily distinguished. Here is a list of the most common and the most important prepositions. Use each one in a sentence.

at across around about among above against along behind beside between below beyond by before beneath down for from in into off on over to toward under up upon with within without

Exercise 4

Underscore the prepositions in the following sentences:

He went to the door and looked out upon the field.

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandfather's house we go.

He saw them in the distance as they were coming toward him.

They went along the road, across the bridge, and hid among the trees at the foot of the hill.

They came from Minneapolis down the river by boat.

The war between the cla.s.ses is a struggle against exploitation.

The army was intrenched behind the barricades before dawn.

His claim was within the law but without justice.

CONJUNCTIONS

+50.+ We have found that the preposition is a very important connective word. It connects two words and shows what one of them has to do with the other, but the preposition is not the only connective word which we use in English. We have another part of speech which performs an important function as a connective word. Notice the following sentence:

Men and women struggle for their rights.