Bruce, Michael,
    I'm surprised no one wrote in on this, but isn't "about eleven miles away" adjectival rather than adverbial?  It seems to me to modify Laodicea, with the commas present to accomodate its nonrestrictive nature.  (The Which is test distorts the picture, as it would for many postnominal modifiers. The box on the table.  The box which is on the table.)  
    I'm not sure how to describe the internal structure, though it's not the only example I can imagine: two miles further, three days past, and so on.  At a place three miles away, we will stop for lunch.  A restaurant two miles back had been an ideal place for lunch. If I had to choose, I would pick away as the head; it seems to be acting almost like a preposition in a postposition (away about eleven miles).  "About" qualifies eleven.  "about eleven miles" tells us the extent of the awayness. Don't you think? 
    I tried some quick research, but couldn't find a treatment of it.  Has someone come up with a name for it?

Craig

Bruce D. Despain wrote:
Michael,

In my grammar I take it as a non-restrictive adverbial (of place)
modification to Laodicea.  Without ellipsis the noun phrase would read:
"Laodicea, (which is) about eleven miles (far) away (from it)."  This makes
_from_ (relation) the head, with the adverb (direction) _away_ modifying it,
which in turn has the adverb (distance) _far_ modifying it, which in turn
has the adverbial noun (extent) _miles_ modifying it, and then the adverbial
noun (number) _eleven_ modifying _miles_ (many varieties of adverbs!).
However, the idiom _away from_ seems to be moving in the direction of a
prepositional phrase modifying _away_.  If you can't live with ellipsis,
then perhaps you will have to have some of these basic syntactic functions
taken over by the parts that do appear. Maybe _miles_ would then take over
as the head with _away_ modifying it, or prossibly better vice versa.  They
are both adverbial with very similar meaning, one being simply more specific
than the other.

I hope this helps.

Bruce

----- Original Message -----
From: "R. Michael Medley (GLS)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 7:52 PM
Subject: what kind of phrase


  
In the sentence:

"Colosse has never been either rebuilt or excavated, unlike its neighbor
Laodicea, about eleven miles away."

What kind of phrase is "about eleven miles away"?  I realize it is
performing an adverbial function, but what is the head word of the phrase?

Thanks in advance for your advice.


R. Michael Medley, Director
Intensive English Program
Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA 22802
[log in to unmask]  (540) 432-4051

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