Question

Fill in the blank with suitable prepositions-
He lives ____ a village ____ the hills.
a. In / beneath
b. At / under
c. On / in
d. Below / with

Answer 1

Hint: A preposition refers to a word that is used to highlight the relationship between other given words in a sentence. They also help in linking nouns or phrases to other parts of a sentence to produce a meaningful sentence.

Complete Answer: As given in the hint, ‘prepositions’ are commonly used to indicate the location, time or direction of an object, noun or a pronoun.
Example- She is sitting in the room. Here, ‘in’ is a preposition of location as it helps in indicating the position of the pronoun ‘she’.
In the given question: We can conclude that ‘X’ lives in a village beneath the hills, as ‘in’ is used to denote the location of an object and ‘beneath’ is used to indicate the position of the village below the hills.
Now, let’s look at the given options and understand their usage-
Option a- ‘In / beneath’ are prepositions having distinct functions. ‘In’ is used to indicate the location of an object, noun or a pronoun, whereas ‘beneath’ is used to indicate the position of an object at a lower level. Hence, it is the correct option.
Option b- ‘At / under’ have different functions. ‘At’ is used to indicate a place, whereas ‘under’ is used to indicate the position of an object below something. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
Option c- ‘On / in’ have varying functions. ‘On’ is used to indicate the position of an object on top of something, whereas ‘in’ is used to indicate the location of an object. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
Option d- ‘Below / with’ have different functions. ‘Below’ is used to the position of an object at a lower level, whereas ‘with’ is used to indicate possession. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
The correct answer is Option ‘a’.

Note: A preposition needs a noun or a pronoun to function properly in a sentence, otherwise the preposition loses its meaning. Example- They have met before. Here, ‘before’ is a preposition that doesn’t have a modifying noun or a pronoun. Hence, it acts like an ‘adverb’.