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White_gown_angel Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Confused about these two statements

I'm very confused. Help me to disambiguate this please:
the difference of underlined part in sentences below:
I saw Mary's clothes on the table

and Mary put her clothes on the table
I'm wondering if "on the table" in the first sentence is compliment and in the second one is adverb? Hope my thinking is right huhuEmotion: stick out tongue
  

Top answer

white_gown_angel I'm wondering if "on the table" in the first sentence is compliment and in the second one is adverb? No. In both cases "on the table" is a prepositional phrase.

— CalifJim

  • white_gown_angel I'm wondering if "on the table" in the first sentence is compliment and in the second one is adverb?
  • No.
  • In both cases "on the table" is a prepositional phrase.
  • " In one case it is where the clothes were when you saw them; in the other case it is where the clothes were placed.
  • It seems to me that the prepositional phrase modifies "clothes" in the first case, and modifies the verb "put" in the second case, so you might say that it is adjectival in nature in the first case and adverbial in nature in the second case, but none of the words "on", "the", "table" are adjectives or adverbs.
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4 Answers
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white_gown_angelI'm wondering if "on the table" in the first sentence is compliment and in the second one is adverb?
No. In both cases "on the table" is a prepositional phrase. Both answer the question "Where?" In one case it is where the clothes were when you saw them; in the other case it is where the clothes were placed. It seems to me that the preposit
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Uhm thank you so much. I also thought of the diference between the two sentences as you just told me, however I used the wrong words to explain. In the second case it's obviously not an adverb but adverbial functioning as a prepositional phrase. I didn't get mark for this part in the exam paper
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white_gown_angelnot an adverb but adverbial functioning as a prepositional phrase.
You meant to say, "not an adverb but a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverb".

(You had it reversed.
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haha yes I think the same as you told just now. I wondered what to say first. However when I said that, I meant the exact function
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