The word - away

Question

Hi Everyone,I'd like to know why the word 'away' is an adjective in this phrase:The shop is ten miles away.Dictionary.com defines the phrase, ....six miles away, as an adjective.Doesn't my sentence answer the question - where/how far?Slightly confused.

GPY · Accepted Answer

If "away" was an adverb (which I guess is your proposal), what would it be modifying?

Cup cake · Answer

Hi GPY,

I can see it's talking about the shop, but I still can't see why it's not ad adverb here, simply because it still answers the question - where.

Is there some simple way/formula (question I should be asking myself) to work out if it's an adverb or an adjective in a sentence?

This is what gets me stuck, most of the time.

[BTW, I'm an artist in my spare time and I found out that artists are terrible at multiple choice questions and RULES, because we see possibilities in everything. Borders are an extremely hard concept to grasp, so I find some grammar rules to be extremely 'vague' for one of a better term.

]

Thanks
Cup Cake.

CalifJim · Answer

Cup cakeI'd like to know why the word 'away' is an adjective in this phrase:The shop is ten miles away.

It's not. Dictionaries have not caught up with the latest work in linguistics, so they contain a lot of old-fashioned ideas. This is one of them.

There are two opinions on this problem.

1) One is that words like 'away' and 'ago' are "postpositions". That is, they go after the noun rather than before the noun like a preposition does. Instead of saying "away ten miles" or "ago ten years" we put the preposition afterwards, making it a "postposition": "ten miles away", "ten years ago".

2) The other is that they are prepositions, but they are prepositions which modify the preposition phrases that follow them.

The shop is ten miles [away [from City Hall] ].

Here "ten miles" is not the complement of "away"; "from City Hall" is the complement of "away".

When we leave out the prepositional phrase, it is implicit, thus:

The shop is ten miles [ away. (from here)]
_________________

You may take your choice as to which school of thought you wish to follow. You may also just as well call "away" an adverb or an adjective as you wish. In the long run, the label is not important. See the following links.

http://www.linguisticsgirl.com/grammatical-form-of-english-prepositions/
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/91210/postpositions-in-english-and-ago

CJ

GPY · Answer

CalifJimOne is that words like 'away' and 'ago' are "postpositions".

Personally I find this idea pretty hard to reconcile with my impression that "ten miles" modifies "away". I guess those advocating this theory don't see it that way.

CalifJim · Answer

GPYPersonally I find this idea pretty hard to reconcile with my impression that "ten miles" modifies "away".

Me, too. That's why, of the two explanations I found online and reported on, I prefer the second one.

CJ

The word - away

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions