Top Tips Grammar: Adjective + preposition

Main points

*Some adjectives used after link verbs can be used alone or followed by a prepositional phrase.
*Some adjectives must be followed by particular prepositions.
*Some adjectives can be followed by different prepositions to introduce different types of information.

 

a) When you use an adjective after a link verb, you can often use the adjective on its own or followed by a prepositional phrase.

- He was afraid.
- He was afraid of his enemies.

 

b) Some adjectives cannot be used alone after a link verb. If they are followed by a prepositional phrase, it must have a particular preposition:

aware of	unaware of	fond of
accustomed of	unaccustomed of	used to

- I’ve always been terribly fond of you.
- He is unaccustomed to the heat.

 

c) Some adjectives can be used alone, or followed by a particular preposition:

*used alone, or with ‘of’ to specify the cause of a feeling

afraid	critical	jealous	suspicious
ashamed	envious	proud	terrified
convinced	frightened	scared	tired

- They may feel jealous of your success.
- I was terrified of her.

*used alone, or with ‘of’ to specify the person who has a quality

brave	good	polite	thoughtful
careless	intelligent	sensible	unkind
clever	kind	silly	unreasonable
generous	nice	stupid	wrong

- That was clever of you!
- I turned the job down, which was stupid of me.

*used alone or used with ‘to’, usually referring to:

Similarity	: close, equal, identical, related, similar
Marriage	: married, engaged
Loyalty	: dedicated, devoted, loyal
Rank	: junior, senior

- My problems are very similar to yours.
- He was dedicated to his job.

*used alone, or followed by ‘with’ to specify the cause of a feeling

bored	displeased	impatient	pleased
content	dissatisfied	impressed	satisfied

- I could never be bored with football.
- He was pleased with her.

*used alone, or with ‘at’ usually referring to:

Strong reactions	: alarmed, amazed, astonished, shocked, surprised
Ability	: bad, excellent, good, hopeless, useless

- He was shocked at the hatred they had known.
- She had always been good at languages.

*used alone, or with ‘for’ to specify the person or thing that a quality relates to.

common	essential	possible	usual
difficult	important	unnecessary
easy	necessary	unusual

- It’s difficult for young people on their own.
- It was unusual for them to go away at the weekend.

 

d) Some adjectives can be used alone, or used with different prepositions.

*used alone, with an impersonal subject and ‘of’ and the subject of the action, or with personal subject and ‘to’ and the object of the action.

cruel	good	nasty	rude
friendly	kind	nice	unfriendly
generous	mean	polite	unkind

- It was rude of him to leave so suddenly.
- She was rude to him for no reason.

*used alone, with ‘about’ to specify a thing or ‘with’ to specify a person

angry	delighted	fed up	happy
annoyed	disappointed	furious	upset

- She was still angry about the result.
- They’re getting pretty fed up with him.

 

 

 

 

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Top Tips Abz Ingles: Part A    -    Part B
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See also:

Words related to Failure to Cooperate	Irregular Verbs list
Common Phrasal Verbs	Common Slangs
Common misspellings	Regular vs Irregular Verbs
Common Errors	Frequently confused words
Common Slangs	Lista de Términos Gramaticales
Common Clichés	Common Prepositions

 

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