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Merriam-webster's definition for here/there as a noun is "here"=this place, and "here" as an adverb "here"=to/in this place ; at this location.

In this sentence: "He's living around here". What part of speech is the word "here"?

He's living around London. At this point of view, "here" acts like a noun.

He's living around to this place. It doesn't seem natural.....

Besides that, if "around" works like a preposition, I think I could not use here as an adverb. But every dictionary defines "here" as an adverb.

HELP ME! I speak Portuguese, these concepts are really difficult for me.

Laurel
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Artur Oliveira
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    I think the modern approach of treating the locatives "here" and "there" as intransitive prepositions is preferable. – BillJ Aug 27 '20 at 08:55
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    I'm looking forward to the day when deictic locatives are seen as being neither adverb nor preposition. – Edwin Ashworth Aug 27 '20 at 15:48
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    Why do you need to know? Wouldn't it be equally useful to say it's blue and not red? Knowing what box to put it in doesn't change its nature or its behavior, and doesn't help one understand it at all. – John Lawler Jan 24 '21 at 23:40
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    Ele vive por aqui. Ele está morando por aqui. É igual que em português (Ele está morando por esse lugar: Não) As duas outras não funcionam. O que é "por" em português? É uma preposição. "aqui" é um advérbio. – Lambie May 24 '21 at 19:29
  • I think a deictic: Here you go. Here it is. But not: I live here. or I live there. Those two usages are different from each other. – Lambie May 24 '21 at 19:33
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    @EdwinAshworth I think that the bounty here is essentially asking something different from the original question; I think the issue about CGEL should be put into a separate question instead. – alphabet Jan 27 '24 at 15:21
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    Is there any question that here also sometimes functions as a noun, as when following a preposition? M-W claims it's a noun in "Where do we go from here?" and certainly a prepositional phrase normally has a noun as its head. (Or to put it another way, which uses of here are we now interested in?) – Stuart F Jan 27 '24 at 15:53
  • @Lambie The development of the deictic locatives lá/cá into metalinguistic negation markers in European Portuguese is an interesting phenomenon. – tchrist Jan 27 '24 at 16:18
  • @EdwinAshworth The only possible alternative that I can think of is to classify them as pronouns. But no "accredited modern grammarians" that I know of analyze them as pronouns. Related: https://english.stackexchange.com/q/536131/27275 – JK2 Jan 28 '24 at 02:25
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    @StuartF If here in Where do we go from here? were to be a noun, we must first figure out whether it's a common noun or a proper noun. Since it's not capitalized, it has to be a common noun. Now, it cannot have a determiner, so it should be a non-count noun. But even non-count nouns can be modified by adjectives, but here cannot. Also, it's virtually impossible to post-modify with a phrase or a clause: Where do we go from here, where he dropped us off? is only possible with the comma because the relative clause cannot modify here. – JK2 Jan 28 '24 at 07:42
  • Alas, The intransitive preposition seems to be the favoured interpretation (Capelle's paper opposing this is the only counter-argument I've seen). Not my DVs on the new answers, incidentally. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 02 '24 at 15:22

2 Answers2

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If you check any good dictionary, "here" is listed as an adverb as well as a noun.

In your sentence, "here" is a noun (meaning THIS PLACE), and acts as the object of the preposition "around". That's why you can easily switch from "here" to "London" (no pun intended!).

If you try switching the two words in the sentence "Stop here", you can't. Why? You guessed it right. Because "here" here functions as an adverb, and not as a noun. Of course, this is not to say that nouns cannot follow verbs in sentences. They can and they do. But then they are the objects of the verbs, not adverbs. I hope I was able to drive home the point.

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    Yes, yes, yes, we all know what (most) dictionaries say. Modern grammar takes the locatives "here" and "there" as intransitive prepositions. This dictionary gets it right link – BillJ Aug 27 '20 at 08:44
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    @BillJ-- With due regards, I cannot quite understand what difference it makes even if there exists a huge chasm between traditional and modern approaches to grammar? I mean it's unlike physical sciences, where, for instance, if I flub an equation, the whole edifice would come crumbling down. I don't really see the point in attaching different labels in traditional and modern set-ups. Because at the end of the day, no "rule" (in the scientific sense of the word) is actually broken; we merely switch terminologies without risking losing the bigger picture. Or it could be that I'm mistaken. :) –  Aug 27 '20 at 09:01
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    It's what grammar is all about, and what this site is all about. The reanalysis of "here" and "there" is an interesting and important development (though it actually goes back a long way). Non-grammarians couldn't give a hoot, but ELU isn't aimed at them. And of course the OP specifically asked about the POS of "here" and deserves an answer based on current thinking. – BillJ Aug 27 '20 at 09:31
  • @BillJ. ELU may not be aimed at non-grammarians, but it is frequented by them. And the English language learners among them have more than probably been taught the traditional terms/definitions. They are probably not aware of the reclassifications done by Huddlestone and Pullum, for example. It is helpful therefore in any answer that claims that word x is part of speech y to state on whose authority the claim is being made. – Shoe Aug 27 '20 at 16:00
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    @Shoe The link that I provided to a dictionary which supports its classification as a preposition is no less an authority than the one used in Stockfish's answer, which simple cited "dictionaries". Yes, non-grammarians do frequent ELU, but they are surely capable of learning about these things; to say otherwise would be to insult their intelligence. – BillJ Aug 27 '20 at 17:03
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    @BillJ. The claim is often made on this site that dictionaries are not to be trusted for grammatical information. So, how is a learner to know which dictionary, if any, to trust? What makes Wiktionary more trustworthy than, say, Merriam-Webster? Anyway, my point is that it would be helpful to say that the classification of here as a preposition is based on an analysis by Huddlestone and Pullum in the CGEL. – Shoe Aug 27 '20 at 17:23
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    @Shoe Bert Capelle is one grammarian not signed up: '... I do not subscribe to any of three related claims, namely (i) that directional particles and full directional PPs have the same syntactic distribution, (ii) that directional particles are shortened versions of full PPs, and (iii) that the use of a directional particle only differs from the use of a formally related full directional PP in leaving the reference object ... understood.' – Edwin Ashworth Jan 20 '22 at 14:41
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What part of speech is "Here"?

Here is an adverb.

"He's living around here" -> "He's living [somewhere] {approximately in this area}"

I would class "around" as an adverb.

Compare: He's hunting around here - "He's hunting [somewhere] {approximately in this area}"

The problem with here, there*, and where is that the words are being asked to do a lot of work. In the past there was

  • hence (from this location)
  • hither (to[wards] this location),
  • thence (from that location)
  • thither (to[wards] that location)
  • whence (from which location)
  • whither. (to[wards] which location)

All the above were adverbs of motion: here, there and where were adverbs of place.

Here, there, and where now all include an implied preposition to indicate place or motion.

*there also has an existential meaning but that does not concern us.

Greybeard
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  • One major snag is that 'be' is rarely conceded to be modifiable by an adverb, making 'He is here' problematic. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 30 '24 at 13:57
  • @EdwinAshworth Perhaps more problematic is that a noun is rarely modifiable by an adverb, as in 'One major snag here is that...' – JK2 Jan 30 '24 at 23:46
  • @EdwinAshworth: I don't see it as a difficulty. Perhaps you were thinking of "It is here" or "Here are the lions" -> at this place. The meaning of "to be" is crucial here. – Greybeard Jan 31 '24 at 00:39