Brett, I never quite bought in to the Huddleston and Pullum suggestion that we treat these as prepositions in all instances. But there is a logic to it that is parallel to seeing a noun phrase as noun phrase even when it's adverbial in function. It may make sense, though, to think of them as complements (ratheer than modifiers) if only because they don't work for all adverbs, or even for all adverbs derived from prepositions.* "many years until."* "Many places to." We can say "many steps down" or "two stops beyond." Or "a whole month away" (this last one pure adverb, I think.) There may be more, but it seems to me they somewhat constellate around time and space, giving us extent or duration or range. I don't think it helps to protect students from frustration by oversimplifying our categories. Students in college are always surprised to learn that a noun phrase can be adverbial, but they don't seem confused when you introduce them to the idea. I suspect that would be true in the lower grades as well. Craig On 10/6/2010 12:22 PM, Brett Reynolds wrote: > On 2010-10-06, at 11:19 AM, Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar wrote: > >> I would also wonder about "before" and "after" and "past" in "many >> years before," "many years after," and "many years past." Are these all >> "postpositions"? > No, I don't think so. I'd call them prepositions even though they don't have an object, but traditionally they are adverbs. In the PP (or AdvP if you like) "many years after", "many years" functions as a modifier. This is different from "many years ago", where "many years" is a complement, likely an object, of 'ago'. > > Best, > Brett > > ----------------------- > Brett Reynolds > English Language Centre > Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning > Toronto, Ontario, Canada > [log in to unmask] > > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html > and select "Join or leave the list" > > Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ > > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/