Prepositions work in combination with a noun or pronoun to create phrases that modify verbs, nouns/pronouns, or adjectives.
Prepositional phrases convey a spatial, temporal, or directional meaning.
Example 1: Ivy climbed up the brick wall of the house.
There are two prepositional phrases in the example above: up the brick wall and of the house. The first prepositional phrase is an adverbial phrase, since it modifies the verb by describing where the ivy climbed. The second phrase further modifies the noun wall (the object of the first prepositional phrase) and describes which wall the ivy climbs. Of course, it could describe the wall that Ivy climbs: because the initial first letter of a sentence is always capitalized and the first letter of a proper name is always capitalized, we have no way of knowing if Ivy the person or ivy the plant is climbing up the brick wall of the house. The only way we could know is through the context in which we find the sentence. And yes, I deliberately did that so I could sneak in the idea of reading contextually in a post about writing!
Back to prepositions in the English language:
Aboard, about, above, across, after, against, along, amid, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, down, during, except, for, from, in, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, out, over, past, since, through, throughout, to, toward, under, underneath, until, unto, up, upon, with, within, without.
(whew! I think I got all of them . . .)
Chloe Cocking 