The first english language faculty the department of english phonetics and phonology

2.2 Structural features of preposition of time so place
Most of the common English prepositions such as: at, in, of, up of are simple consists of one word, other prepositions consisting of more than one word are called complex prepositions.
The following is a comprehensive list of simple prepositions: about, abroad, above, after, across, against, before, behind, below, beside, for, from, in, off, since, than, under, with.
Complex prepositions: most complex prepositions are placeable, according to their form into one of three categories:
A: Adverb preposition: along with, apart from, as for, away from, into, out of, together with;
B: verb/adjective/ conjunction preposition: except for, owing to, due to, because of;
C: preposition+noun+preposition: by means of, in comparison with, instead of;
As we have said the head of prepositions is realized only by prepositions. These may be simple. The simple forms are be for the commonest: as, at, down, for, from, in, like, near, of, off;
The two words prepositions consists of a preposition an adjective: contrary, so adverb instead; or a conjunction: because; followed by one of the prepositions
for, from, of, to, with, against;
along with, except fro, but for, near to;
contrary to, due to, inclusive of, prior to;
apart from, together with, regardless of;
instead of, as far as, as from;
In most two words prepositions the meaning is expressed by the first word, the second is serving to link it to the completive.
According to my information;
Because of what I said;
Their word prepositions have the form preposition + noun + preposition; in conflict with; with the noun sometimes being determined by the: in the hsos of;
The first prepositions is virtually limited to. In, on, by, for, with so the second to of, with, for. Such complex heads are then followed by the completive:
In contact with you; in return for this;
By way of a change; by means of sighs;
On the top of that; on the part of everyone;
At the expense of your health;
Sometimes noun of the complex preposition may be modified by an adjective as in with the surprising exception of Tom.
A small number of complex prepositions ending with of have an alternative structure;
For the sake of the children on the behalf of committee
For the children’s sake on the committee’s behalf
However, the genitive form is used primarily with completive having personal reference. In most general terms a preposition expresses a relation between two entities one being that represented by a prepositional complement, of various types of relation meaning those of place so time. Other relationship such as instrument so cause may also be recognized although it’s difficult to describe prepositional meaning systematically in the terms of such labels.
Prepositions of place are typically either adjuncts relating an event or state of affairs to a location of post modifiers relating some object to a location; they may also act as obligatory predicative adjuncts following verb Be:

To	At	Away from	From away
On (to)	On	Off	Off
In (to)	In	Out of	Out of

In for specific time. In is also used when you want to specify periods of time, minutes, hours, days, using in ordinal.
…. In early hours of the morning
My father was killed in the war.
Two people came to my room in my absence. (A. Sill toe’s “Key to the door”)
At is a preposition of place so time. People or thing can be at points of place so time. In both meanings at contrasts with on so in. At is used when we are thinking of places as points in space so we are not thinking of their size.
We lsoed at Heathrow.
I waited at the bus stop.
What’s on at the cinema?
Would you like to live at the seaside?
There are fairies at the bottom of the garden. (A. Sillitoe’s “Key to the door”)