A prepositional adverb is a word – mainly a

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...

– which is very similar in its form to a preposition but functions as an

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...

. Prepositional adverbs occur, for example, in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

and

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

. Unlike real prepositions, they occur mainly at the end of a phrase and not before nouns. They also modify the verb, which a preposition does not. An example of a prepositional adverb in English is "inside" in "He peeked inside".

Phrasal verb

A verb combined with a prepositional adverb is called a

phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (e ...

only if the verb's meaning is changed by the prepositional adverb. In English, there are many examples of this. For example, ''let'' can have many possible meanings depending on which prepositional adverb it is combined with (''let down'', ''let in'', ''let off'', ''let to'', etc.)

Prepositional adverbs in other languages

Although prepositional adverbs are largely associated with

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...

, those of other classes occasionally have corresponding features. For instance,

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

such as

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

may prefix prepositions to verbs of motion (''jít'' to go → ''dojít'' to come towards, ''odejít'' to go away from). In Hungarian, the case endings may also be prefixed to verbs (''városba'' to the city, ''bemenni'' to go towards), much as in German.

Phrasal verb

Prepositional adverbs in other languages

See also