I don't know, Maureen.  In "I am afraid of him," conventional grammar
would call "of him" an adverbial modifer of "afraid."  But the distinction
I really got to wondering about was between a friend of Bill Clilnton's
and a supporter of Bill Clinton.

On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Maureen Fitzpatrick wrote:

> I'm not completely certain, but I'll take a stab.  I think this is one of
> those examples that shows why a functional or rhetorical understanding of
> grammar can be more helpful than a strictly traditional understanding of it.
> The best I can do is to mention what you've probably already noticed--that
> the prepositional phrase is acting as an adjective (it can be rewritten "I
> am his friend" just as "I have a watch of gold" can be written "I have a
> gold watch").  In a case like "I am afraid of him", my best guess would be
> that it is acting as either as an object or perhaps as an adverbial
> (answering the adverbial question "why?").
>
> How far off does that sound?
>
> Maureen Fitzpatrick
> Associate Professor, Johnson County Community College
>
>         ----------
>         From:  Michael Kischner [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>         Sent:  Wednesday, July 07, 1999 6:49 PM
>         To:  [log in to unmask]
>         Subject:  Re: Yet Another Grammatical Question
>
>         To give everybody a rest from Henry James:
>
>         An ESL student in my class wrote, "Now I am a friend of him."  Is
> there a
>         good reason I can give him for why it should be "of HIS"?
>
>         It gets funny with proper names, too.  If we knew each other well, I
> might
>         describe myself as a friend of Bill Clinton's.  But, at least for
> the
>         first four or five days of his term, I would have described myself
> as a
>         supporter of Bill Clinton.  Go figure.  Please.
>