Thank you for posting this. I've been tearing my hair out trying to make sense of conflicting information on other websites. Just when I think I've understood the difference between an adverb and a preposition, I read something like the examples you cited from Merriam-Webster and start doubting my grasp of the subject all over again.

I'd say that the first example is an adverb (because you could omit 'on the table' without changing the meaning) and the second is a preposition (because the object 'your book' is essential for the meaning - if you said 'lay down for a minute' without mentioning the book', the sense is completely altered).

I guess the lesson is that even the authorities can get confused by these grey areas of grammar.

Hi Sandy,

Tearing out your hair...yep, I've been there! Thanks for letting us know what you think.

In that first example ('They set the cake down on the table'), you mentioned that we can remove 'on the table' with no difference to meaning. I agree with that, but can we remove 'the cake'? In this case, 'they set down' doesn't make sense alone, so I think it's similar to 'lay down', which does make sense but only because it's a whole other meaning, in the second example ('Lay down your book for a minute'). Because we need the objects to make the meaning clear, I'd argue that 'down' is a preposition in both cases, and not an adverb as Merriam-Webster suggested. Yep, still confused! ;)

With the Merriam-Webster’s definition and taking the two examples you compared at the end:
1)Go down the stairs. (preposition)
2)Lay down your book. (adverb)

I think that at least in this case we can actually say that the rule IS that as long as we can move the object, it is always an adverb.
On the first example the subject is the one who is moving 'I go down the stairs' and NOT the stairs, that is why it is taken as a preposition. And on the second example it is the book that is moving, and not the subject.

Still, I may be wrong. I'm also confused, and your post helped me a lot with the project I had to work in for college. Thank you!

Thank you so much. I'm teaching my Thai students about adverbs and they ask me how they can differenciate prepositional phrase of place with adverb of place. They are just beginners. So your suggestion helps me to decide if I should focus on the differences or not.

Thank you so much; you've helped me a lot. So to make sure I have understood the difference,in the following sentence 'up' is an adverb, isn't it?'I'm sure I could turn something up to satisfy the basic condition.'

Your explanation has been very helpful. Kindly explain the definite article THE. To the best of my knowledge, THE is partly dependent and partly independent. 'He lives in the United States of America.' We must use it here as it is Dependent. 'I have bought a book.' or the book. It is up to us what we want to say. If the object is a common noun, 'a book' is correct. If we want to show that the object is a particular noun, 'the book' is correct. Kindly guide me and correct me if I have understood it correctly. Thanks for your precious time.

Dear Ms. Trusler,
I have been confused with the word 'to'. When is it a preposition that should be followed by a noun/gerund, like in 'I look forward to it/seeing you' and when is it part of an infinitive, like in ' I used to live there' ?
Would you please help me know the difference / how to identify it?
Thank you.

Thanks for the sharing very great information. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much, I am a intermediate English student, an it helped me so much!

Think of 'down the street' versus 'down the book'. Think in terms of whether your are answering the question 'where' or 'when' (since we use spatial metaphors to talk about time).

'down the street' and 'along the street' depend on the fact that the street is a place and thus mentioning answers the question when, as well as metaphorical thinking about my eyes being high and looking down along the street which gets narrower with perspective, as well as the the idea of the street being narrow and long.

'down the book' , 'down the weapon', 'down the receiver', and 'down the pill' don't have this 'when' type attribute and thus 'down' is adverbial in nature here, and without mention of the verb here even coerces the adverbial usage into having imperative verbal force. This is equivalent to including an implied verb 'put' in the first three cases, because we literally and commonly 'pick up' and 'put down' books and weapons, and somewhere between literally and metaphorically one player may 'put down' another player, and then his teammates may 'pick up' the player. The particle/adverb nature is indicated by the way pronouns get inserted when they pick him up or he picks himself up.

In the final example, the normal thing we do with pills is swallow them, so 'swallow down' is the expanded version making clear the implied verb and the action that we are commanding.

To give time based illustrations answering 'when', think of 'within the hour', 'in an hour', 'on the hour', 'at two o'clock', 'on time', 'in time', 'over time', 'under time'.

To give mixed space-time illustrations that answer both 'when' and 'where' note that 'at work' implies both the workplace, the working day, and the working activities/scenarios. The statements 'I'll ring you at work' or 'I'll ring you from work' could be as much about the time or task as the place (it's not appropriate to talk now or one of us doesn't have the documents to hand at the moment, so I'll ring you in working hours).

The time-space-relevance corresponds to a series of wh-word (when-where-how/why/whose) type attributes being supplied by an adverbial phrase, including prepositional phrases ('on Monday', 'down the corridor', 'on the document'; 'the author's works/correspondence' = '[works] of/by the author' resp. '[correspondence] to/with/by the author' ) and of course also noun phrases ('last week' or 'home' or 'today') that omit the preposition and act adverbially.

Technically even single words of other parts of speech acting as adverbs are still playing a standard role those for those other parts of speech with the same semantics but implied context in contexts where many would relabel them adverbs ('home' or 'today') and they represent and can be expanded or altered into the more complex prepositional phrases ('at home', 'at my home', 'in my home', 'in the home', 'this day', 'the other day', 'the next day').