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Re: Which part of speech?

From:Christopher Wright <dhasenan@...>
Date:Monday, May 9, 2005, 0:47
Gregory Gadow palsalge
>I should know this, but my brain keeps coming up empty (like that hasn't >ever happened before.) > >In the sentences, "It is raining today" and "Yesterday, she went to the >market", what part of speech is 'today' and 'yesterday'? I want to say >that they are acting as adverbs, but that doesn't seem right. > >Thanks in advance. > >Gregory Gadow
They're nouns: 1) Today is a good day to die. 2) Tomorrow will come shortly. Adverbials act a bit differently: 3) *Recently was a good time to die. 4) *Soon will come shortly. In English, certain nouns can receive an unmarked temporal-locative case: 5) I attended the Northwest Conference on Linguistics [NP last year]. 6) John's going to visit his cousin [NP next week]. These alternate with prepositional phrases: 7) Mary will attend Sakuracon [PP in two weeks]. 8) Gilgamesh traversed Cuba [PP in CE 1381]. So we must assume that something's providing the temporal-locative case (well, theta role, really; I don't know how this would accord with UTAH). It's simplest to assume that a preposition is the source of case and theta role. Still, as shown in (1-4), "today" "yesterday" etc. are nominal, not adverbial. I enjoy syntax, can you tell? -Chris Wright

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Muke Tever <hotblack@...>