In his ear, he whispers gaily.
Is "in his ear" a prepositional or an adverbial phrase?
Please explain your choice and give some reasons for your answer. Thanks!
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1Try including the sentence that caused you confusion. A phrase by itself, not in a sentence, can be prepositional, adverbial, or even other things. In English grammar, nearly everything depends strongly on context. – Ben Kovitz Jan 12 '16 at 13:13
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4Didn't you just ask this same question earlier today? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/78549/… – stangdon Jan 12 '16 at 14:23
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@stangdon I think this should remain, but the first sentence of the original question should be deleted to split the question. – Nihilist_Frost Jan 12 '16 at 17:18
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1Please do not closevote as a duplicate: this question was part of an earlier question, but has now been extracted from it and no longer duplicates. – StoneyB on hiatus Jan 12 '16 at 18:17
It is both.
The term preposition phrase describes the phrase's internal structure: it is constructed with a preposition followed by its object.
The term adverbial phrase describes the phrase's external syntactic role: it designates the place where the action was directed and is taken to "modify" the action in the same way as an adverb like softly or angrily would.
answered Jan 12 '16 at 13:54
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@Araucaria I agree with your characterization of adverbial, but I am dubious about "worth mentioning": OP appears to be under the eye of a traditionalist pedagogue, and it may be indiscreet to proselytize. – StoneyB on hiatus Jan 12 '16 at 23:15
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Yes, indeed that was more for your amusement really, if I'm honest. Will delete in a bit. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Jan 12 '16 at 23:17
