By is an irreplaceable preposition due to its role in the construction of passive voice and other vital semantic structures.
By + a Person:
By Sam
By Julie
By Kira
By + a Pronoun:
By me
By them
By us
By + a Reflexive Pronoun:
By ourselves
By herself
By yourself
By + a Place
By the restaurant
By my home
By that fountain
By + a Date
By tomorrow
By next month
By Christmas
By + ing Form
By doing
By cleaning
By singing
There are so many uses for the preposition “BY”. In particular, it is usually used as a marker of bygone times or as an indicator of time when something occurs. By can be used in a variety of situations to mean and indicate several references.
First, it indicates the method by which an action is done:
They did this by their hard work.
Second, By also means next to:
My fiance walks by me whenever we are together.
Third, passive voice implements by to specify the agent:
This painting was drawn by a communist artist.
Fourth, we use by to mean “no later than”:
I want the report on my desk by Monday.
Meaning, I want the report ready as soon as possible and it has to be ready before the coming Monday which is the final deadline.
Fifth, it is repeatedly used with adjectives:
Hans took John by surprise.
Other examples of By:
The castle was built by the forest. In this context, by means at the side of the forest.
I managed to get a hold of the manager by phone. Here, it is used to specify means of communication. While I arrived at Manhattan city by train indicates that by specifies the method of transportation. Both previous examples illustrate the manner by which the action was carried out.
By doing this, you are going to succeed. “By” provides here more information about how to achieve a certain end.
By + Reflexive pronouns:
Samantha, Riley, and Jade live by themselves. As you can see here this “by” moves to mean on their own, together, or alone according to the context preceding.
By as together:
Camila and Daisy go on vacation by themselves.
By as alone:
Charlotte lives by herself.
Finally, we’ll introduce by with time terminology:
By is widely used with time expressions:
The company really needs a big win by the next quarter.
You’ll get to return home by the end of this camp.
We hope that you enjoyed this article and benefited from those compiled pieces of information. Share with us any other cases you know about the preposition “by”.