Craig - I know we've had this discussion before, but my reaction is "what difference does it make what we call it?"  I don't see how you can have anything except flexible boundaries, which then leads to the more interesting question of the rhetorical effect of "shading" into a verb - what happens to the meaning of the sentence? Labeling the choices as preopositions, adjectives or verbs really doesn't go very far to answer this question.

Geoff Layton
 
> Craig,
> 
> My first reaction was that this use of "like" was adjectival, but since you want a traditional treatment I checked the OED Online and Merriam Webster Dictionary Online. Both treat as an adjective, although MW doesn't have an example with BE.
> 
> Herb
 
> I am curious about how traditional grammar handles "like" in a sentence like "One of these things is not like the others." (I know; Sesame Street).
> My instinct is to say "like the others" is prepositional phrase, complement to "is", therefore referring back (adjectivally?) to "One of these things." Would that be standard?
> If it can be easily replaced by "resembles" (or "doesn't resemble"), does that mean "be like" is shading into a verb like status with "the others" as object? Are we OK with flexible boundaries around our categories?
> 
> Craig 		 	   		  
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