Some prepositions in today’s Chinese language are the same as those in the ancient Chinese such as “于” and “以”. Some of them are evolved from the traditional Chinese like “把” and “被” and so on. Besides, foreigners who learn Mandarin in China should pay attention to those used as prepositions but still remain the usage of verbs. They can be both preposition and verb.
For example, the character “在”, when we use it as a preposition, we can say “小明不在家”. And you can understand the usage of being as a preposition in the sentence “书在桌子上放着”. Such characters that learners often see when they study Chinese are “朝、向、往、顺、顺着、对、为、跟”.
From the examples above, we can see that the relationship between prepositions and verbs is very close. Therefore, when you learn Chinese language in China, teachers often explain the grammatical features of prepositions by telling apart the differences between verb and preposition.
First of all, the preposition is the functional word, so it can be used neither alone nor act as subject and predicate alone. Accordingly, we can’t say “他对于、小明把、阿里从”. But we can answer the question “你在图书馆学习吗？” by a single “在”. However, learners who study in China should know that many other prepositions can’t be used to answer question alone. For instance, the answer “从” is not allowed to answer “这本书从图书馆借的吗?”
Besides, the preposition has no application if reduplication. It also not allowed to take verbal auxiliaries such as “了、着、过”. When foreigners learn Mandarin in China, they may have seen that some prepositions have several patterns like “为、为着、为了”, “沿、沿着”, “朝、朝着”, “向、向着”, “随、随着” and “除、除了” and so on.
Foreign learners who learn Chinese in China should pay attention to the “了” and “着” in those prepositions above. Both of them have no grammatical meaning. It makes no difference in meaning and usage whether we use them or not. Therefore, they are not verbal auxiliaries in this situation but the fixed compositions of the prepositions themselves.
Another feature is that a nominal composition should be placed after the preposition to form a prepositional phrase. When you learn to speak Chinese, you should remember that the parts act as the object often the noun (phrase), adjective (phrase), verb (phrase). Sometimes, the subject and predicate phrase is also possible like “人们都在为工程早日完成而努力工作“.
Let’s move our attention to the grammatical functions of the preposition phrases. Teachers in qualified Mandarin program in China may tell you that the function of being adverbial is the main grammatical function. Here are some examples. “我的一个老同学从上海来了”, “他对我们的学习很关心”.
Another application that foreigners should know when learning Mandarin Chinese should be the usage of being attribute. In this application, the character “的” is inevitable between the preposition phrase and the head word. Here is a sentence as example “人们对月球的研究，以后还会不停地继续下去”.
In the sentence “鲁迅生于1881年”, the preposition phrase functioned as complement. Only the words like “于、向、自、到、在、给、往” have this function. It can also used as object. But students in Chinese school in China should what often used as object are the patterns “为了……” and “在……” and often in the sentence with “是”. For instance, “这部片子最初构思是在1950年”. In the sentence “从8:00 到12:00 是工作时间”, it functioned as subject.
All above are the grammatical features of prepositions and the grammatical functions of the preposition phrases. After learning them, Chinese language learners will have a better understanding about the usage of the preposition.