Final answer:
In the provided anecdote, prepositional phrases such as 'of Nathaniel Hawthorne', 'for each other', 'to whom Julian Hawthorne had just been introduced', and 'when I was only four years old' add context and detail to the narrative, showing relationships and providing clarity to the sentences.
Step-by-step explanation:
The anecdote provided consists of several prepositional phrases which serve to add detail to the statements made. In the opening sentence, 'Nathaniel Hawthorne's son, Julian' is a prepositional phrase, with 'son' acting as the object of the preposition 'of'. Another example within the text is 'father and son were frequently mistaken for each other', where 'for each other' functions as a prepositional phrase with 'each other' as the object of the preposition 'for'. Additional prepositional phrases include 'to whom Julian Hawthorne had just been introduced', where 'to whom' introduces the phrase and 'whom' is the object of the preposition 'to', and 'when I was only four years old' with 'when' as the preposition and 'four years old' being its object.
Prepositional phrases often provide temporal or spatial relation information within a sentence and can also show logical relationships, like the cause and effect presented in the phrase 'when I was only four years'. By identifying these phrases, we can understand the context and specific details that the author intended to convey, which helps to enhance our interpretation and comprehension of the text. Identifying such prepositional phrases is essential for a deep grammatical understanding of a sentence.