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Re: Which part of speech?

From:Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Friday, May 13, 2005, 5:45
On Thursday, May 12, 2005, at 09:00 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
[snip]
> But surely "last night" would've been considered an adverbial phrase back > in > your youth?
Yes, it would have been.
> It wouldn't be called a prepositional phrase now, would it?
No, it would not. It's an adverbial :)
>> Trask does not >> even list the term 'adverbial phrase'; he does, however, list 'adverb >> phrase' thus: >> "A phrase whose lexical head is an adverb; _very quietly_, _right here_. >> " >> >> But you two Swedes may like to know that the adjective 'adverbial' ("of >> or >> pertaining to adverbs") is also used as _noun_ in English as well. As a >> noun it means: >> "Any category with a distribution and a function similar to that of a >> lexical adverb, such as _tomorrow night_, _in the garden_, _when she >> arrives_ or _in order to find out_, regardless of its surface syntactic >> realization, which may be that of a lexical adverb, an adverb phrase, a >> prepositional phrase, an adverbial clause or a non-finite VP. The term >> 'adverbial' is thus a functional one." > > Ah. This is basically the same as Swedish _adverbial_.
I thought 'twas.
> Apparently not a very common usage, tho; doesn't occur in the couple > lexica I > checked after reading BP's first post.
I think you're right. Ray =============================================== http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown ray.brown@freeuk.com =============================================== Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason." [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]