What do prepositions indicate in a sentence?

Prepositions play a crucial role in indicating the relationship between nouns or pronouns and other elements in a sentence. They help to clarify how one word relates to another, often showing relationships of time, place, direction, or manner. For example, in the phrase "The book is on the table," the preposition "on" illustrates the relationship between "book" and "table," conveying where the book is located.

Understanding this function is key to comprehending sentence structure, as prepositions link ideas and provide important context. This relational aspect is what distinguishes prepositions from other parts of speech, such as verbs, which denote action, or subjects, which specify who or what the sentence is about.