Suffice
it to say that ‘Prepositions’ are parts of speech that find application in
connecting the noun, noun-equivalent or the pronoun they are placed before to
the rest of the sentence provided. But, as we move on deciding upon the
prepositions that specifically fit our particular cases, we feel a little
confused as their apparent evasive nature often baffles our understanding of
them. Before we reach the next level we must take it into account that
prepositions can have abstract sense besides their concrete connotation. To
magnify it or better our understanding we’d better discuss them in little
groups.
IN/INTO:
As a preposition ‘in’ is considered three dimensional as it signifies a place
or position within an area usually covered or almost covered. You can say ‘The
frog is in the well’. This sentence says where the frog actually exists or
lives. If you change information and say, ‘The frog jumps/jumped into the well’
the sentence refers to the frog changing its position down into the well from
the outside. Here we can see a movement from one place to another, but in the
former case there was no sense of movement conveyed. Whenever there is movement
towards the inside of something we consider ‘into’, and ‘in’ where there is no
movement or it is unimportant to point out if there is any.Now
look at this sentence ‘Shakespeare lived in Stratford’, it doesn’t mean
Shakespeare had never gone out of Stratford; the abstract sense stressed here
is that a considerable part of Shakespeare’s life centres round the village
mentioned or its affinity. ‘The detective is looking into the murder case’ this
sentence also conveys the abstract sense of the detective speculating about the
case, making efforts to bring out secrets as he goes down through it.
ON/ONTO:
‘On’ is used to refer to a one dimensional area (on the surface of something)
not covering it. ‘The new vase is on the table’ gives the sense that the vase
is at a point on the surface of the table, not covering it. It just stays there
at one point on the table without any movement. The next sentence ‘She is
taking the food off the trolley and putting it onto the shelves’ is, however,
different in that the woman is taking the food from one place to another.
Whenever there are movements of persons, animals or other things from one
surface to another surface, we use ‘onto’ instead of ‘on’, e.g. ‘The boy ran onto
the platform to catch the train to London’.
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