Final answer:
The sentence structure that includes a preposition indicating a time relationship is 'C. The dog ran away during the family's vacation.' The word 'during' serves as the preposition that places the action in a specific time frame.
Step-by-step explanation:
The structure that includes a preposition showing a time relationship is "C. The dog ran away during the family's vacation.” The preposition “during” indicates when the event took place, providing a clear temporal connection. In English grammar, prepositions like 'during' help to give more information about the timing of an action relative to another event.
Prepositions can often pinpoint the exact circumstances of an action, which can involve aspects such as location, time, cause, and direction. For example, the sentence “On Thursday I drove up north to move a couch for a friend” uses the prepositional phrase 'on Thursday' to indicate when the action happened, which is crucial for establishing the sequence of events or the context of the narrative.
Prepositional phrases can sometimes include gerunds, acting as the object of the preposition, like in the sentence “For thirty years, Marcel has started every morning by swimming around the bay,” wherein 'swimming' is the gerund functioning as the object of the preposition 'by'. Understanding prepositions and prepositional phrases is essential for mastering sentence construction and clarity in communication.