THE CAT IS ON THE TABLE

Use of prepositions can be very confusing for non native speakers. Take for example – “sono a casa” is “I am at home” while “vado al lavoro” is not “I go at work” but “I go to work”.  Il famoso “the cat is on the table” can translate into both “il gatto è sul tavolo” or “il gatto è sopra il tavolo”. In English “the cat is over the table” would not work in that it gives the impression that the cat is hovering above the table and not actually touching it.

Prepositions such as to, in, from, between, after, before, etc. normally come before a noun or pronoun and give information about how, when or where something has happened (‘she arrived before lunch’, ‘I travelled to London’).

The preposition between should be followed by an object pronoun like me, him or us instead of a subject pronoun such I, she and we. It is therefore correct to say ‘this matter is between you and me’ and wrong to say ‘this matter is between you and I’.

Prepositions are a difficult area of English usage for non-native speakers, because while they sometimes appear to be used logically (e.g. the pen is on the table, the pen is under the table; I am going to London, I am coming from London) this is not always the case.

The reason for this is that prepositions often form part of phrasal verbs found in idiomatic expressions whose real meaning differs from their apparent meaning. Examples include I cannot put up with this, you deal with that client, I’ll just skim through the report. Therefore, it may be helpful to use this section in conjunction with the glossary of phrasal verbs at the back of the book.

Here are some prepositions in common usage in legal English, together with examples of use. Note that prepositions are sometimes used with other prepositions (pursuant to, owing to, due to, as far as, by means of, in accordance with, etc.)

Here are some examples of correct use of prepositions:

•  X Ltd and Y Ltd entered into the contract of sale on 15.06.2023
•  The company began trademark infringement proceedings against one of  its   competitors
•  Following the court hearing, the lawyer returned to her office
•  Certain discussions took place between the lawyers off the record
•  As regards payment of our fee, we can offer an instalment option
•  The advice given to the client was amended owing to a recent decision of       the   Court of Appeal.
• The consent of the bank must be obtained prior to the share transfer being   made.
• The company changed its name pursuant to the new legislation on        company names.
• Our client wishes to seek an injunction against his neighbour regardless of whether the building work is suspended or not.
• The assignment was completed by the agreed deadline in spite of several unforeseen difficulties that arose along the way.
• We have had to terminate Mr Taylor’s employment contract on account of his unsatisfactory performance at work.
• The lawyer appeared on behalf of her client at the pre-trial review

Do not overuse prepositions !

An easy test to help reduce the number of prepositions is to search for the genitive case, or a possessive form: If a sentence could use the genitive case but doesn’t, revise the sentence. For example: “She was disturbed by the violent images in the movie” gains more impact (and loses a preposition) by reversing the sentence’s subject and object: “She was disturbed by the movie’s violent images.”

Combine this strategy with a shift from passive voice to active voice, and you jettison two prepositions and further strengthen the statement: “The movie’s violent images disturbed her.”

Another use of this technique is to revise a phrase including a reference to a location within a location, as in “the Museum of Modern Art in New York City,” which can be more actively and efficiently rendered as “New York City’s Modern Art museum.”

You can hide verbs  that need a preposition, “Their attempt to provide a justification of the expense was unsuccessful,” simplified to “Their attempt to justify the expense was unsuccessful”

Prepositional phrases (preposition+article+noun) provide context, but they’re not always necessary. In a sentence like “The best outcome for this scenario would be an incremental withdrawal,” note whether the meaning is clear without the phrase, and if so, strike it out: “The best outcome would be an incremental withdrawal.