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  1. I am here!
  2. I am home!

I frequently use the expressions, though I don't understand why they make sense, and I have recently got to be in curious how the meanings are understandable in grammatical approach, so I asked someone about it.

Someone told me that here and home are modifying 'am' because 'am' means existential itself, but I disagree on the explaining and am thinking here and home are just adverbrial complement even though they are not actually modifying anything in the sentences. (Of course, there is certain sentences in which 'am' means existential but I really don't agree in this case)

What do you think? I just want to know what here and home are modifying. (I have searched this site for this similar post, but I couldn't find out anything, so I have newly posted it.)

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  • 2
    They are not modifiers. "Here" and "home" are locative complements of "be". Trad grammar analyses them as adverbs, but modern grammar takes them as prepositions. – BillJ Mar 12 '18 at 20:05
  • @BillJ how can they be treated as prepositions? If they were, they could be followed by any words. – Glittering river Mar 12 '18 at 20:14
  • They are called intransitive prepositions. In general, prepositions don't always need complements, e.g.; "What are you on?"; "What is this for?"; "Where is the concert at?" – BillJ Mar 13 '18 at 16:37
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Simply put, subject + be + adverb.

From the Cambridge Dictionary

Don't worry, I'll be home soon.

make it shorter, we get

I'll be home.

In the example, "I" is the subject, "will be" is the to be verb, home is adverb, as the Dictionary clearly says that.

To make a sentence grammatically correct, we just need to construct subject + predicate.

In this example, "will be home" is the predicate.

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A brief but correct answer can be found at English.SE.

"Here" is a proximal deictic locative predicate in the sentence, "I am here."

It does not modify the verb "am."
It does not modify anything, in fact.
(Be) "here" is the Predicate in the sentence.

The "am" is indeed an auxiliary verb, meaning, like the Spanish auxiliary estar, 'be located (at)'.

To simplify the origial answer a bit: "I" is the subject, "am" is the verb, "here" is the predicate. "Here" and "home" are NOT adverbs and are NOT modifying anything. The verb "am" describes either a state of being ("I am hungry") or a location ("I am home").

It's worth noting that, formally, stating a location should be "I am at..." such as "I am at home" or "I am at school," "I am at the corner of Maple Street and Commerce Avenue" and in most instances the "at" is required. However, in very common situations (e.g., "I am home") the "at" is dropped.

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