A Student's Introduction to English Grammar

[8] TRADITIONAL PREPOSITION

a. She went aboard the liner.

11 a. He sat outside her bedroom.

§2.2 Prepositions vs adverbs^131

TRADITIONAL ADVERB

b. She went aboard.

b. He sat outside.

It has often been suggested that the traditional adverb category has something of
the character of a classificatory wastebasket, a dumping ground for words that don't
belong in any of the other more clearly defined categories. This criticism certainly
seems valid in the present case. Aboard in [ib] and outside in [iib] don't, on the tra­
ditional account, qualify as prepositions because prepositions are defined in such a
way that they require NP complements. They are obviously not nouns, verbs, adjec­
tives or conjunctions, so there is nowhere to put them except in the adverb category.
We put it this way because it is important to see that these words do not in fact
satisfy the definition that traditional grammar gives to the adverb category: 'An
adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb'. They typi­
cally occur, for example, in the three functions given in [3] for PPs:

[9] DEPENDENT OF NOUN

the conditions aboard

11 the temperature outside

DEPENDENT OF VERB

She went aboard.

He sat outside.

COMPLEMENT OF BE

She i§, still aboard.

He i§, outside.

(Contexts for the first example in each set might be I won't attempt to describe [the
conditions aboard] and [The temperature outside] was over 40°.)
The first and third of the functions illustrated in [9] are characteristic of preposi­
tions, but not of adverbs. Let us consider them in turn.

(a) Dependents of nouns

Adverbs do not normally occur as dependents of nouns: in related adjective-adverb
pairs it is the adjective that appears in this function. No such restriction applies to
prepositions. Compare:

[10] PP

a. She criticised them with tact.

ii a. [A manager with tact] is needed.

ADVERB

b. She criticised them tactfully.

b. *[A manager tactfully] is needed.

The underlined expressions in [i] modify the verb, and we see that both PP and

adverb are admissible.

In [ii], however, they modify the noun manager and here the PP is admissible but

the adverb is not; instead we need an adjective: a tactful manager.

(b) Complement of the verb be

Adverbs cannot normally function as complement to be in its ascriptive sense: here
we again have adjectives, in their predicative use. As with (a) above, there is no
comparable constraint applying to prepositions. Compare:

[11] PP AS COMPLEMENT OF BE

a. The key is under the mat.

11 a. The meeting is on Tu esday.

ADVP AS COMPLEMENT OF BE

b. *Lucy was enthusiastically today.

b. *Rain is again.