# home [adverb?]



## Chasint

<< This more theoretical discussion has been broken off from: I went to home" - why is this wrong? >>



Matching Mole said:


> "Home" ... is actually a remnant of a grammatical case ("accusative of direction", which exists in Latin and a number of other languages). As the word has been put into a case which means "to (a place)" it doesn't take the preposition "to". However the inflected form looks the same as the uninflected, so you can only tell it's in this case by how it is used...


I'll accept that explanation.

The idea that "home" is an adverb is crazy. We have a perfectly good adverb in "homeward" why do we need another?  If they were both adverbs, how would you distinguish between them?

I say that "home" is a good old noun that takes a silent "to".


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## PaulQ

> home, adv.
> 1. a. To or towards one's home, house, or abode; to the place, region, or country where one lives.
> 
> 1918   W. Faulkner Let. 22 Nov. in Thinking of Home (1992) 134   They are going to start demobilization about Monday, so that..I'll be on my way home in three weeks.
> 1962   John o' London's 16 Aug. 163/1   His girl-friend..challenges him to ‘borrow’ the car of her choice..and drive her home in it.
> 1995   C. B. Divakaruni Arranged Marriage (1997) 284,   I hurried home from work.



But perhaps it is clearer without a verb of motion:



> 1.e. Without verb of motion. Arrived at one's house, neighbourhood, or country after a period of absence. Also: in one's home; at home.
> 
> 1971   J. Blume Then again, maybe I Won't 125   Why can't I stay home and loaf around.


(all OED)


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## Chasint

> "There are no rules in English, only guidance. Some guidance looks like a rule; it probably isn't."


Does that apply to the OED PaulQ?  If so I'll happily continue to call 'home' a noun.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Biffo.

Your attitude is understandable, but I'd like to call your attention to the fact that _natural_ languages change over time, and among the "changes" there are the _new_ uses of old words. These new "uses" have to be labelled by grammarians and lexicographers. How? There're two main ways to go about the matter: either we change the grammatical category ( "Here 'home' _is an adverb_" or — and this is a tad roundabout way — we say "Here 'home' _functions as an adverb_"). The latter is certainly correct; the former is more economical.

Finally, think of the English word "down". How would you instinctively label it? Perhaps the answer will depend on your personal experience, such as the way the word was first labelled by your elementary school teacher, etc. Preposition? Adverb?...?
The small-medium sized English dictionary on my desk now gives me six different functional labels:

adv, adj, prep, noun1, verb, noun2

The Pope bent _down_ to kiss the child
He was very _down_ after losing his job
They ran _down_ the hill
It's third _down_ and five yards to go
The boxer _downed_ his opponent in the third round
down = fine soft feathers or hair, as on a young bird or a baby's head

GS


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## Chasint

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Hullo, Biffo.
> 
> Your attitude is understandable, but I'd like to call your attention to the fact that _natural_ languages change over time, and among the "changes" there are the _new_ uses of old words. These new "uses" have to be labelled by grammarians and lexicographers. How? There're two main ways to go about the matter: either we change the grammatical category ( "Here 'home' _is an adverb_" or — and this is a tad roundabout way — we say "Here 'home' _functions as an adverb_"). The latter is certainly correct; the former is more economical...
> 
> GS


That's a useful comment. Thanks.

I suppose I'm looking for a motivation for calling 'home' an adverb in the first place.  I'd be interested in your opinion about my _reductio ad absurdum_ argument as follows:

"Proof" that the name John is an adverb

(a) We are told by dictionaries that in the sentence_ "We go home."_, 'home' is an adverb.
(b) The reasoning is that "We go to home" is not used.
(c) By removing the preposition, 'home' becomes an adverb.

(d) We can apply the same argument to the following sentence. "Give John the bowl."
(e) "We know that, "Give to John the bowl" is not used.
(f) By removing the preposition, 'John' becomes an adverb.

I would be genuinely interested for you to show me the flaw in this argument. You see, I believe that the word 'home' effectively has the status of a proper noun. Each of us has or had a mother whom we call Mother and each of us lucky ones has a home which we call home. 

 Pictures showing 'Home' being treated as a name with a capital letter:

Home-sweet-Home

Theres_no_place_like_Home

Note
I will not be persuaded by arguments concerning 'go' being intransitive and 'give' being transitive. This is orthogonal to the question of whether 'home' is an adverb  or an indirect object.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Biffo.

"to home" would be perfect as an _adverbial of place_  — not unlike "to school", "to hospital", etc. — if it weren't for the fact that speakers of English as a mother tongue simply do not use it. Instead they compact _the notion expressed by the adverbial of place _"to home" and just say "home". Most probably this is the result of a long process of simplification the evidence of which I've never investigated. The _adverbial of place_ "home", consisting of one word, is usually labelled "_adverb_ of place".

Unlike "to home" which, as I said above, has nothing intrinsically "wrong" in representing an _adverbial of place_, "to John" would never be considered an adverbial. Hence, "John" could never be considered an _adverb_.

Do you think the above is reasonable?

GS


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## Chasint

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> Hullo, Biffo.
> 
> "to home" would be perfect as an _adverbial of place_  — not unlike "to school", "to hospital", etc. — if it weren't for the fact that speakers of English as a mother tongue simply do not use it. Instead they compact _the notion expressed by the adverbial of place _"to home" and just say "home". Most probably this is the result of a long process of simplification the evidence of which I've never investigated. The _adverbial of place_ "home", consisting of one word, is usually labelled "_adverb_ of place".
> 
> Unlike "to home" which, as I said above, has nothing intrinsically "wrong" in representing an _adverbial of place_, "to John" would never be considered an adverbial. Hence, "John" could never be considered an _adverb_.
> 
> Do you think the above is reasonable?
> 
> GS


It makes sense but it doesn't satisfy. On what basis do you claim that "to school" is to be considered adverbial and "to John" is not?


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## PaulQ

Although I hold to the concept of direct and indirect objects, and that the indirect object is in the dative and the dative can imply "*to *noun" and "*for *noun" as in,

"He baked *her *the cake." = "He baked the cake *for her*."
"He gave *the dog* a bone" = "He gave the bone *to the dog*.",

the indirect object is the object which _benefits from_ the action of the verb, and I think we can agree upon that.

In "He took his wife *to *Paris." and "He sailed the vessel *for *Japan." it is clear that neither Paris nor Japan benefit and thus are not indirect objects, but are in fact prepositional phrases that are adverbial as it _tells us something about the manner in which the verb was conducted_.

In "I took her home" it is clear that "home" does not benefit in any way from the verb.

"Home" can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb and, there is nothing wrong with that:

"The squire's home was on the hill"; "He homed in on the weakness." "My home phone number is 883673." "I took her home."


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## Keith Bradford

First, let's acknowledge that almost any word in English can, in the right context, be almost any part of speech.
Next, let's acknowledge that English doesn't have rules, just preferred usages.
Third, let's admit that there are exceptions to the rules we don't have.

"Home" is one of those exceptions.

(Be thankful - in Latin the exceptions were towns, small islands, _domus _and _rus _('home' and 'country') which had a locative case.  At least English has dropped that!)


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## Edinburgher

Biffo said:


> I'd be interested in your opinion about my _reductio ad absurdum_ argument as follows:
> "Proof" that the name John is an adverb {snip}
> I would be genuinely interested for you to show me the flaw in this argument.


 *What* flaw?  John *is* an adverb. 
In "Give him the bowl", you may think that 'him' is a pronoun, and it is, but its role is in some sense adverbial, it modifies 'give'.  Therefore, whatever else it may be it is also an adverb:


> (WRD definition of *adverb*) _a word or group of words that serves to modify a whole sentence, a verb, another adverb, or an adjective_


In "Bring home the money", or indeed "Lug home wild things", 'home' modifies the verb and is therefore an adverb.
Even if you rightly consider it a stunted form of the prepositional phrase "into the home", or a remnant of the former locative case of the noun, that prepositional phrase or locative noun would still be of an adverbial nature and can therefore rightly be called "an adverb".


> The idea that "home" is an adverb is crazy.


 If it really were crazy, dictionaries would surely refrain from peddling that idea.


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## Chasint

PaulQ said:


> Although I hold to the concept of direct and indirect objects, and that the indirect object is in the dative and the dative can imply "to noun" and "for noun" as in,
> "He baked her the cake." = "He baked the cake for her."
> "He gave the dog a bone" = "He gave the bone to the dog.",
> the indirect object is the object which benefits from the action of the verb, and I think we can agree upon that.


I could quibble and say that, "He gave the dog a kick" doesn't benefit  the dog or that "He gave her a cursory glance" neither benefits nor  damages her.  However the point you are making seems to be more about  the verb "to give" than about indirect objects. Clearly someone receives something - that's part of the definition of the verb 'to give'.

If you allow me I'll cover the other points separately.


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## Chasint

Edinburgher said:


> *What* flaw?  John *is* an adverb. ...


Oh in that case I'm happy with your answer. You are therefore saying that any noun can be an adverb. Hurray - someone is being consistent.  I'm not arguing. I think  others might.

All I want is for the definitions to be self-consistent.


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## PaulQ

Biffo said:


> I could quibble and say that, "He gave the dog a kick" doesn't benefit  the dog or that "He gave her a cursory glance" neither benefits nor  damages her.


I don't think it is particularly helpful to create strawman arguments.  





> However the point you are making seems to be more about  the verb "to give" than about indirect objects.


I chose the verb "to give" (and "made") as it is ditransitive. 





> Clearly someone receives something - that's part of the definition of the verb 'to give'.


I'm sorry, I simply do not see your point. You seem to be focussing on the meaning of an example verb rather than the nature of monotransitive and ditransitive verbs. 

For "home" to be an indirect object "He took it home." to take would have to be ditransitive: it isn't. I remind myself of the sentence, "He took his wife to Paris." "to Paris" is not an indirect object.



> If you allow me I'll cover the other points separately.


By all means.


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## Edinburgher

PaulQ said:


> For "home" to be an indirect object "He took it home." to take would have to be ditransitive: it isn't.
> I remind myself of the sentence, "He took his wife to Paris." "to Paris" is not an indirect object.


 I'm not sure you can say that verbs are innately either ditransitive or not.  Whether they are is determined by how they are used.
I agree that "to take" isn't ditransitive in your above two examples, but it can be elsewhere.  Isn't "his wife" an indirect object in "He took his wife some coffee."?


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## Keith Bradford

Er, 'scuse me but can we talk about "home"?

*Either *it's an adverb meaning "homewards".
*Or *it's a noun meaning - well - "home", but one that has a (uniquely?) non-standard construction after verbs of motion.

Until God tells us which He had in mind when He invented the English language  there's going to be no solution to this because both my above explanations are logically impeccable.  And so long as you can use it properly (i.e. not say '*to* home') then all's well.


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## PaulQ

The claim that as homewards is clearly an adverb then home cannot be an adverb is, as far as I can see, unsubstantiated but Biffo may explain this and why in “They sailed east.” and “They sailed eastwards.” east and eastwards are both adverbs, as it seems to contradict the OED's researchers:

OED





> -wards, suffix
> 
> 1. In English the history of -wards as an advb. suffix is identical with that of -ward (see -ward suffix 3, 4); beside every adv. in -ward there has always existed (at least potentially) a parallel formation in -wards, and vice versa. The two forms are so nearly synonymous (the general sense of the advs. being ‘in the direction indicated by the first element of the compound’) that the choice between them is mostly determined by some notion of euphony in the particular context; some persons, apparently, have a fixed preference for the one or the other form. Sometimes, however, the difference in the form of the suffix corresponds to a difference in the shade of meaning conveyed,[...]. Where the meaning to be expressed includes the notion of manner as well as direction of movement, -wards is required, as in ‘to walk backwards’, ‘to write backwards’. In other instances the distinction seems to be that -wards is used when the adv. is meant to express a definite direction in contrast with other directions: thus we say ‘it is moving forwards if it is moving at all’, but ‘to come forward’, not ‘forwards’ (see further the note on forward adv.); so ‘to travel eastward’ expresses generally the notion of travelling in the direction of an eastern goal, ‘to travel eastwards’ implies that the direction is thought of as contrasted with other possible directions. Hence -wards seems to have an air of precision which has caused it to be avoided in poetical use.


I hope the mods will excuse the rather long quote that is needed to give the full explanation and perhaps put the topic to bed.


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## Chasint

PaulQ said:


> The claim that as homewards is clearly an adverb then home cannot be an adverb is, as far as I can see, unsubstantiated but Biffo may explain this and why in “They sailed east.” and “They sailed eastwards.” east and eastwards are both adverbs, as it seems to contradict the OED's researchers:
> 
> OEDI hope the mods will excuse the rather long quote that is needed to give the full explanation and perhaps put the topic to bed.


There's a slight problem. You have quoted a long passage but I don't think you've read it. It does not compare east and eastwards,  it compares east*ward* and east*wards*.


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## PaulQ

The problem is that the entry is from the suffix "-wards" therefore the adverb without -wards can be assumed. Hence, I await your distinction between "He sailed east." and "He sailed eastward[s]." 

Please re-read in this light.

OED:
*east, adv., adj., and n.1*
*A.* adv. In the direction of that part of the horizon where the sun rises, in the direction of the earth's diurnal rotation about the polar axis; towards the cardinal point which is 90 degrees clockwise from the north point. (Sometimes used less precisely to indicate any direction towards the half of the sky where the sun rises.)
*1.* * a. With reference to direction, motion, or extent.*
eOE   _Anglo-Saxon Chron._ (Parker) anno 891,   Her for se here east.
2004   _Time Out N.Y._ 10 June 20/2   For an amazing waterfront pedal, continue east from the park.

*eastward, adv., adj., and n.*
*A.* adv. In an easterly direction, towards the east.

* 1. With reference to direction, motion, or extent.*
OE   Ælfric _Interrogationes Sigewulfi in Genesin_ (Corpus Cambr. 162) xxi, in _Anglia_ (1884) *7* 14   Ðas seofon tunglan gað æfre easwerd ongean þa heofonan, ac seo heofon is strengra, & abret hi ealle underbæc westward mid hire ryne.[…]
2008   _Ecologist_ July–Aug. 39/2   El Niño causes warm water to move eastward so the Pacific Ocean releases more heat.


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## Chasint

PaulQ said:


> The problem is that the entry is from the suffix "-wards" therefore the adverb without -wards can be assumed.


Of course. That is patently true.  I repeat that in that passage there is no comparison between <root> and <root>wards.  The comparison is being made between <root>*ward* and <root>*wards*.  It has zero relevance to this thread.



PaulQ said:


> Hence, I await your distinction between "He sailed east." and "He sailed eastward[s]."
> Please re-read in this light.
> ...


(a) There is no 'hence' and no reason for re-reading on my part. I understood it the first time. I urge you to re-read in the light of what I have just said.
(b) With regard to the definitions of east and eastward, I am perfectly happy for the sake of this discussion to concede their equivalence. That doesn't affect my beliefs about home/homeward.
(c) I am happy to discuss east/eastward with relevance to the thread topic. Or rather I'll choose magnetic north because it's easier to define.

_I travelled north. ---->  I followed the magnetic pointer on my compass._

_I travelled northwards. ---->  I followed the magnetic pointer on my compass._

_I went homewards. ----> I progressed towards my home._

_I went home.  ----> I left where I was and arrived at my home._

The use of 'home' is a special case here  because it it tells us the destination not the direction. In that use it is different from north or east.


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## PaulQ

Home is a noun in "I went to the home." - simple. No possibility of adding an article? It's an adverb.

"I went west." adverb
"I went to the west." noun.

"Home" is not special at all. This is special pleading. It has been used adverbially since before Beowulf was a lad.


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## ManOfWords

Thanks Brioche! I liked your explaining of it; =]


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## ManOfWords

Thanks PauQ too;


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## Chasint

PaulQ said:


> ..."Home" is not special at all. This is special pleading. It has been used adverbially since before Beowulf was a lad.


In that case I'd like to request your comments on my reasoning as follows:

The use of 'home' (versus 'homeward') is a special case because it it tells us the  destination not the direction. It also tells us something different about the result of the action. I'll give examples to illustrate and for context.

East versus eastward(s)
I say there's a nuance but I'll suppress that and concede that they both tell us about the direction  of travel.

Home versus homeward(s)
_After a long day at work I went homewards._  ---> The listener can conclude that I left my workplace and travelled towards my home. They cannot conclude I arrived. Maybe I tripped during the journey and ended up in hospital. In fact I imagine the use of 'homewards' would prompt most people to enquire about whether I actually made it home.

_After a long day at work I went home._  --->  This time the 'man/woman in the street'* will conclude that I left work and arrived at my dwelling. In common parlance, _"I went home"_ implies_ "... and I arrived."_

The above is my reading. It forms part of my argument. I wonder if others accept it.

_____________________________________________________________
* I haven't done a survey of course. It's my guess.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, Biffo.

"On what basis do you claim that "to school" is to be considered adverbial and "to John" is not?

I'd say essentially on semantic grounds: "school" is "a place of education for children". A _place_, then. Or maybe better, "school" is a _noun_ which has, as its referent in the extralinguistic world, "a place of education for children". When it is preceded by a preposition, the prepositional phrase we obtain is an adverbial of place. 
"John" does not refer to a place, time, manner, etc. in the extralinguistic world, hence having it preceded by a preposition does not make it an adverbial. 
Maybe _at John's_ (in "I am at John's") should be considered an adverbial of place. But even then, I suspect "Ø John's" could hardly be considered a place. 

GS


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## Edinburgher

Biffo said:


> The use of 'home' (versus 'homeward') is a special case because it it tells us the  destination not the direction.
> It also tells us something different about the result of the action.


 I don't think it's as special as you make out.
What you say about home vs homeward(s), I see also in east vs eastward(s).  Although the distinction between east and eastwards can become blurred, I see "east" as meaning in an easterly direction relative to where I am (it's basically compass direction), whereas I see "eastwards" as being towards a  destination that we might call "the east".  My destination may well be exactly due east of my point of departure, but I can't go directly east because there's a mountain in the way.  The road for my eastward travel skirts around the mountain, and I need to travel first southeast and then northeast in order to progress eastwards.  It's no big deal; call it nuance if you must, I see it as a little more than that, though perhaps not much.

I accept that "homewards" basically means "towards home" and implies direction and/or purpose but not necessarily arrival.

I wouldn't say that "home" necessarily implies arrival.  It probably does in "I went home", but not in "I am going home".
"Home" doesn't even necessarily imply direction or movement at all, it can mean static location ("at home").
_I arrived at the house, opened the door, and walked in.  __"Yoohoo, I'm *home*!" I called, to__ signal to my parents that I had arrived.  But there was no reply.  "Is anybody *home*?" I shouted.  Still no answer.  Then I found the note on the kitchen table telling me they had had to go out unexpectedly and would not be back till tomorrow, and that my dinner was in the oven._


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## Aspara Gus

According to the latest cutting-edge grammar, _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_, _home_ is a preposition (in _I went home_ and _I am home_).


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## Keith Bradford

Aspara Gus said:


> According to the latest cutting-edge grammar, _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_, _home_ is a preposition (in _I went home_ and _I am home_).



Garn!  You must have misread that, it's not April 1st!


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## Aspara Gus

I thought it was absurd, too, until I read the argument for myself. The preposition analysis actually makes a lot more sense than the adverb/noun one, in my opinion.


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## Chasint

Aspara Gus said:


> I thought it was absurd, too, until I read the argument for myself. The preposition analysis actually makes a lot more sense than the adverb/noun one, in my opinion.


What page is this on? What is the section heading? It may be findable online.


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## Edinburgher

Perhaps you could summarize the argument here.  It does sound absurd, unless they are using some new definition for what a preposition is.  The traditional one (from WRD), is:
_a word or group of words  used before a noun or pronoun to relate it grammatically or semantically  to some other constituent of a sentence_.

What noun or pronoun would you put "home" in front of in "I went home"?


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## ManOfWords

Lawks! ... 'home' is a preposition?


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## Edinburgher

Thank you, Gus, for taking the trouble to make this extract available.  It seems I was right in #30 when I guessed that they must have redefined the notion of what a preposition is.
As their text freely admits, their ideas are rather at variance with traditional thinking.  Nevertheless it is an interesting approach.  Not quite absurd, then, but I don't think the world at large is ready for it yet.  Give us another few dozen centuries and we might come round to their way of thinking.

Meanwhile, it's an adverb.


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## Smauler

Home is where the heart is, at least.


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## Keith Bradford

Edinburgher said:


> ... Not quite absurd, then...



Not quite absurd, just logically flawed.  Some of the statements are blatantly untrue.  To go into it in detail would be off-topic but look at the 4th sentence ("No adverb in ·_ly_...") in its paragraph 29, for instance.


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## Aspara Gus

Keith Bradford said:


> Not quite absurd, just logically flawed.  Some of the statements are blatantly untrue.  To go into it in detail would be off-topic but look at the 4th sentence ("No adverb in ·_ly_...") in its paragraph 29, for instance.



I don't see why going in detail would be off-topic. It seems to me to be relevant to the discussion in this thread, which is about how the word _home_ should be categorized. So please, if you would, explain why you think that that sentence is logically flawed or blatantly untrue, as well as any other parts of the argument.


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## bennymix

Hi Asp,
Thanks so much for the excerpt.  The re drawing of lines around 'prepositions' is certainly a fine topic.   What you posted, while complicated seems quite relevant to the discussion of 'home,' since H and P are explicitly re classifying many adverbs as prepositions;  they give their reasons and examples--they likely have thought about the issues for years.

I'm pretty sure Edinburgher has seen this, but the excerpt answers his question:


> What noun or pronoun would you put "home" in front of in "I went home"?



The requirement of a nounish thing following, as in a standard definition, is explicitly dropped by H and P.   And I find their example persuasive.
Compare. _ She came aboard the ship_   and _She came aboard._    What's the reason for saying 'aboard' is used or means differently in the two cases.
Solution of H and P:  It's a preposition, both cases.   IF the reason is--as Ed might say-- prepositions have nouns following, then that's just circular argument, given that the def'n is under discussion.


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## Andygc

_<< --- comment deleted --- >>_

I wonder how fruitful a debate over the status of "home" as a preposition can be. If two groups of people apply different definitions to a word, they are talking about different things. If I define a cow as a beast with horns and an udder, and you define a cow as a beast with horns that doesn't have to have an udder, we're going to have problems over agreeing on milk production. H&P 'prepositions' are cows without udders.


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## bennymix

Good points.  But given that boundaries around such categories as adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions are be argued over and redrawn, we might as well hear both sides and their reasons.  "I've also done so" or "I've always heard it so" just don't help the debate, nor help learners understand the issues.   Further it's hardly the case that a couple uneducated wackos from the outback self-published a grammar of English with flagrantly weird definitions  (comparable to your cows without udders illustration).  Top grammarians, sanctioned by a famous press in England, proposed re drawing some lines and gave *extensive* arguments and reasons for doing so.


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## Andygc

I'm not suggesting they are anything other than reputable academics, but they are using a new definition of 'preposition'. If they want to redefine grammar, they need to create new words for their new definitions. Otherwise who can tell what who means about what?

PS. The logic of their argument seems to me to be somewhat circular - I haven't the inclination to go into this in depth, but it seems based on making a case for redefining 'preposition' and then using that redefinition to justify their argument.

<< Topic drift. >>


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## Chasint

Andygc said:


> I'm not suggesting they are anything other than  reputable academics, but they are using a new definition of  'preposition'. If they want to redefine grammar, they need to create new  words for their new definitions...


This is why I am sceptical  about taking any authority (including the OED) as gospel. People often  tend to quote from the text that supports their own prejudices. Personally  speaking, that's why I pushed for this discussion - so we could explore the matter  rationally and look from all points of view.

So far the strongest argument against my own position (i.e. that 'home' is always a noun) has been  Edinburgher's, _"Yoohoo, I'm home." _ I'm going to have to think about that one.

Rather than polarizing, let's all simply compare notes.


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## Linkway

English speakers certainly DO sometimes use prepositions with "home", depending on which sense of home is intended.


I'm going home.  = the speakers own home, in particular the place s/he habitually sleeps.
I'm going to John's home.
I'm going to the dogs' home.
Welcome to my home!


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## Aspara Gus

Andygc said:


> but they are using a new definition of 'preposition'


Yes, but not without good reason. As they point out, the traditional definition is flawed: prepositions don't just take NP complements, but also PPs, AdvPs, AdjPs, and clauses. Traditional prepositions take these various complements. So it doesn't take much thought to come up with counterexamples to the traditional definition; they come up constantly. What's more is that H&P give compelling evidence for analyzing prepositions as heads. I think it's more accurate to say they've made a discovery in the language than simply change the definition of ‘preposition’ to justify their argument, as you say.


Andygc said:


> If they want to redefine grammar, they need to create new words for their new definitions.


They make a good argument against this as well:

The classification of words like _aboard _and _outside _as adverbs is thus inconsistent with the traditional definition of that category. The best way to remove this inconsistency is to amend the definition of prepositions so that they are no longer required to have an NP complement. _Aboard_, _outside _and similar words will then be prepositions both when they have NP complements and when they occur alone. This revision simultaneously gets rid of the complication of a dual classification for these words and removes them from the adverb class words which differ radically in their syntactic properties from genuine adverbs, thus making it a significantly more coherent class. <<---->>


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## Andygc

Aspara Gus said:


> They make a good argument against this as well:
> 
> The classification of words like aboard and outside as adverbs is thus inconsistent with the traditional definition of that category


No they don't. Adverbs modify verbs in ways that answer how? where? and when? That's exactly what aboard and outside do, and, in particular, what 'home' does in "I went home". Their logic is laughable:





> First, prepositions do not always precede their complements: in What are you looking for?


They seem not to have heard of a straw man, and this one is a haystack. Nobody claims that prepositions always precede their noun. A standard way of asking a question is to change the word order. That doesn't make a preposition into a non-preposition. I don't think I'll waste a lot of effort on these two's thesis given the standard of logical thought that they demonstrate in the snippets I've read here.

By the way, I'm not a linguist and have no pretensions to be one, but I do have a logical and analytical brain (or so I have often been told). In my opinion, these two linguists don't have one between them.


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## Aspara Gus

Andygc said:


> Adverbs modify verbs in ways that answer how? where? and when? That's exactly what aboard and outside do, and, in particular, what 'home' does in "I went home".


That they answer such questions does not mean that they are modifiers. You seem to be using ‘modify’ as a semantic term, but ‘modifier’ is a syntactic function. We're talking syntax here, not meaning. _Home_ in _I went home_ is quite clearly a complement of the verb, not a modifier, because it's obligatory (_*I went_ is not grammatical). As H&P argued, such complements can't reasonably said to be modifiers; _home_ in _I am home_ no more modifies the verb than does _young_ in _They are young_.



Andygc said:


> Their logic is laughable:They seem not to have heard of a straw man, and this one is a haystack. Nobody claims that prepositions always precede their noun.


You've completely missed the point, which is that words change their meanings: the etymology of ‘preposition’, as they said, suggests a word placed in front of another word, but this is not a requirement in present-day English. Thus they are proposing that prepositions further deviate from their etymology in that the other word (its complement) needn't necessarily be present at all. In fact, in some cases the complement is inadmissible (but understood), as in:

_His speech was an embarrassment to listen to.
Jill has her grandparents to look after.
The tumor is ready for the doctor to operate on.
Suicide isn't an easy thing to talk about.
Pay is easy to be intimidated by._


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## Andygc

"Yesterday I couldn't decide whether or not to go to the beach"
"What did you do?"
"I went."
Is that not grammatical?
I haven't missed the point,  I'm disagreeing with their justification for arbitrarily altering the meaning of a word so that it ceases to have the meaning most people attribute to it. The purpose of language is to communicate, and they are erecting barriers to communication between their adherents and the rest of the English-speaking world, and also those speaking other languages who are interested in comparative grammar.

Your examples of inadmissible complements all have the complement as an antecedent (I hope that's an acceptable term here). Hence the implied complement is known. In "I go home" there is no complement for the putative preposition, real or implicit. I find it bizarre to describe a word that has its meaning complete and of itself as a preposition. Their justification for redefining 'preposition' is illogical. If they want to redefine grammar they need new terminology, rather than abusing a word that is widely understood. Note that I am not saying they are wrong to want to redefine grammar (although I find this particular example very strange indeed), but they are wrong to misuse established terminology.


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## Aspara Gus

Andygc said:


> "Yesterday I couldn't decide whether or not to go to the beach"
> "What did you do?"
> "I went."
> Is that not grammatical?


OK, leaving aside such contexts as that where the complement is understood from the preceding discourse, _I went_ is ungrammatical.



Andygc said:


> Your examples of inadmissible complements all have the complement as an antecedent (I hope that's an acceptable term here). Hence the implied complement is known. In "I go home" there is no complement for the putative preposition, real or implicit.


Right, but I'm not saying those examples are comparable to examples like _I go home_. Again you miss the point.



Andygc said:


> Their justification for redefining 'preposition' is illogical.


Actually, it's completely logical. Either you didn't read the entire argument or you didn't fully understand it. In any case, I have nothing left to add to this discussion.


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## Edinburgher

Aspara Gus said:


> _I went_ is ungrammatical.


 Whatever the merits of their approach, this part of the claim is simply not true.  _I went_ is not ungrammatical.  _To go_ does not always need a complement, not even an understood one.

But this example is hardly the king plank of their approach, and so this mistake, if we can agree that it is one, isn't really that big a deal.


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## Aspara Gus

Edinburgher said:


> _I went_ is not ungrammatical.  _To go_ does not always need a complement, not even an understood one.




Indeed. In my haste, I conflated _I went_ with ungrammatical examples like *_I darted_ and *_Jill is_ (if the latter isn't used elliptically). That's my blunder, not _CGEL_'s, however.

(Still, it can be argued that _home_ in _I went home_ is a complement licensed by the verb, rather than a modifying adjunct like the adverb _later_. Complements are not always mandatory.)


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## Packard

Home schooled is an accepted phrase.  Schooled is a verb.  Home modifies the verb.  Ergo, home is an adverb.


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## Edinburgher

Packard said:


> Home schooled is an accepted phrase.  Schooled is a verb.  Home modifies the verb.  Ergo, home is an adverb.


 Actually in this case I'd say  _home_ is a noun used adverbially, rather than an actual adverb.  The equivalent construction using a prepositional phrase, also used adverbially, and where _home_ is also a noun, would be _schooled at home_.  In _pan-fried scallops_, you wouldn't call _pan_ an adverb too, would you?

In _I went home_, or _I brought home the bacon_, _home_ does not play quite the same role as in _home-schooled_.   To me the difference in roles is enough to make me consider _home_ an adverb with _went/brought_, but a noun in _home-schooled_.


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## Myridon

Edinburgher said:


> In _pan-fried scallops_, you wouldn't call _pan_ an adverb too, would you?


"Pan" tells you how they were fried, doesn't it?   (If I had a doctorate in linguistics, I could write a book saying that it is an adverb.  If the book became popular, I would have as much authority as Quirk saying that there are 32 types of subjects.)  We seem to be arguing about the names of things (which have been somewhat arbitrarily assigned after the fact by more than one authority) more than the things themselves.


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## PaulQ

Packard said:


> Home schooled is an accepted phrase.  Schooled is a verb.  Home modifies the verb.  Ergo, home is an adverb.



*Schooled *is an adjective, therefore 'home' is an adverb.The alternative is that "home-schooled" is an adjective.



> schooled, adj.
> 
> Etymology:  < school v.1 + -ed suffix1.
> 
> That has been schooled (in various senses); trained; disciplined; educated, learned.
> 
> 1557   T. North tr. A. de Guevara Diall Princes iii. viii. f. 168v/1,   My skooled harte was alwayes taught to staye From egre luste of others heaped good.
> [...]
> 1994   Eng. Today Oct. 31/1   Evidence of unschooled pronunciation in the 1700s is scarce because few schooled writers recorded it.


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## Edinburgher

Myridon said:


> "Pan" tells you how they were fried, doesn't it?


 It tells me what they were fried in.

_Pan-fried_ is an idiotic expression anyway.  What else would you fry things in if not a pan? -- And don't you dare say butter!


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## Andygc

Aspara Gus said:


> OK, leaving aside such contexts as that where the complement is understood from the preceding discourse, _I went_ is ungrammatical.
> 
> Right, but I'm not saying those examples are comparable to examples like _I go home_. Again you miss the point.
> 
> Actually, it's completely logical. Either you didn't read the entire argument or you didn't fully understand it. In any case, I have nothing left to add to this discussion.


Yet again, no, I did not miss the point. You think I missed the point. Kindly have the courtesy to understand the difference.

I struggle to understand why you give examples to reinforce your argument and then tell me that they are irrelevant to the topic of this thread, which is the adverbial nature of 'home' in 'go home'. It seems you may be the one missing a point.

I did read their justification for redefining 'preposition'. I find it offensive for you to suggest that I did not understand it. I am perfectly capable of understanding flawed logic which this, in my opinion, is. They gave no logical justification, in my opinion, for redefining a word that has a well-defined and well-understood meaning. I am not rude to you because I disagree with you. Please try to reciprocate.

Their approach strikes me as somewhat arrogant - 'everybody else is wrong, this is what this word means'. It doesn't. If they want to introduce a new grammatical concept they need to introduce a new descriptive vocabulary. I know that language evolves and the meanings of words change, but they don't change just because a couple of iconoclasts say so.


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## Keith Bradford

Look, this argument is seriously silly.

We all know that in English a word is not (or rarely) definable as *one, single, fixed *part of speech.  _Sometime _can be an adjective, _up _can be an adjective or a noun, _table _can be a verb.

So, given that _home _can be a noun ("the old lady went into a home"), a verb ("the missile homed in on its target") an adjective ("I love home cooking") and an adverb ("he headed home"), there seems little point in arguing about what it must be.  Almost the only things it can't be are a pronoun or a preposition, unless you do what these Cambridge people do and completely redefine the meaning of "preposition".  So I hereby declare that "home" is a breed of cat... as I define the term "breed of cat".

But I'm not so silly as to think that my feline redefinition is going to help either learners of English or breeders of cats.


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## Myridon

Edinburgher said:


> _Pan-fried_ is an idiotic expression anyway.  What else would you fry things in if not a pan? -- And don't you dare say butter!


A wok. A skillet.  A deep fryer.  A fryolater.
A pan can be any kind of pan so I would say actually it does refer to the method (pan-fried rather than deep-fried).  I hope that they are frying-pan-fried and not saucepan-fried or dutch-oven-fried.


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## Cagey

The issue appears to be incapable of resolution --- and productive of irritation and bad feeling.  

I am closing this thread. 

Thank you to everyone who has participated and taken the time to explain their views. 

(And please review Rule II for next time.)

Cagey, moderator.


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