Note.—Occasionally we find a prepositional phrase completing a verb and seeming more like a noun complement than an adjective; as, “A common means of transportation was in clumsy carts drawn by oxen going at the most but three or four miles an hour.”—Draper.
The Prepositional Phrase used Adverbially.—The prepositional phrase often modifies a verb or an adjective, and may modify an adverb. As a verb modifier it may denote the various relations denoted by clauses, though place, time, and manner are the most common; as, “They come in the summer months by hundreds and hundreds of thousands out of the cold gray sea.”—Kipling. Here we have three phrases modifying come, introduced by in, by, and out of, and denoting respectively time, manner, and place.
The prepositional phrase of place tells,—(a) where an action occurs or a condition exists; as, “Herring appear in immense schools off the coast of Norway and the northern shores of the British Isles”; (b) whence an action proceeds; (c) whither an action tends. Both of these last we find in the sentence,—
“From underneath an aged oak,
That slanted from an islet rock,
A little skiff shot to the bay.”—Scott.
The prepositional phrase of time may denote almost all the relations denoted by the adverbial clause of time, and several of the words used as conjunctions to introduce those clauses, such as after, before, since, till, were originally prepositions and are still employed as such.
The prepositional phrase of manner is found quite as often as the adverb of manner; for example, “He had fired with great rapidity yet with surprising accuracy.” If adverbs had been used here the sentence would read, “He had fired very rapidly yet surprisingly accurately.” The combination of the last two adverbs is exceedingly awkward.
When a prepositional phrase modifies an adjective it generally serves to limit its application by denoting the particular respect in which its meaning is to be considered; thus, “Our fathers emerged from their arduous, protracted, desolating Revolutionary struggle, rich indeed in hope, but poor in worldly goods.”—Greeley. Here the phrases tell in what particular our fathers were rich and poor.
Note.—The prepositional phrase may modify the interjection alas, which is equivalent to the assertion I am sorry; thus, “One may believe that the golden age is behind us or before us, but alas for the forlorn wisdom of him who rejects it altogether.”—Higginson.