Jasper Locke

@Araucaria Asking for the difference of being wooden/metal & being a plate is nonsensical because one's composition, the other shape (more or less). A better analogy would have been metal vs. wooden plate. I'll tell you why the term adverbial is useless: when grammarians set out to define what part of speech something was, they had to think about them functionally as well as formally. Before an adverb can be talked about, one needs to know what an adverb is, what its properties are, & what it does. As such, the distinction is frivolous.

@Araucaria with the greatest respect, you're a poltroon. I understand perfectly well that linguists think of adverbial as a functional category and that adverb as a formal one. I just reject it.

@Araucaria 1) I said right now not now. 2) Now is not a preposition; it's an adverb that answers the question when. The distinction between preposition and adverb disappears when prepositional phrases are reduced to prepositions. 3) The distinction between adverb and adverbial is unnecessary. 4) The verb put, which requires an object (the dish) and locative element (in the dishwater), cannot be analyzed alone with now as you could with Run the dog to the store now -> run now (verb+now).

[cont.] Sixth, verbs have been categorized by their complementation, & I certainly don't think it's stupid. Seventh, the difference between after & on is that one is a nominal clause which acts as a noun whilst I can only call the other an "independent clause".

[cont.] when you're finished with your meal). Fourth, now can function (temporally) only in terminal and introductory position but not always in medial position put [*now] the dish [*now] in dishwater. *Now functions introductorily as a nontemporal disjunct as well as a regular adverb. Fifth, prepositions as a class require certain properties, as all others do, so their restriction to preposition+noun (or noun phrase) creates a well-defined boundary. Now, if I had to analyze until recently, I'd say that it might be an elliptical adverbial clause, but that seems somewhat dissatisfactory…

@Araucaria , you're problem with right now is that you're expecting right to behave with every adverb as it does with now. It doesn't. It collocates only with certain adverbs, one of which is temporal (another is there). Second, your example of put the dish in dishwater now is misleading because verbs of "conveyance" require an object & a locative element; because of this, it is impossible to remove "the dish in the dishwater" and analyze the verb & now, &, frankly, unillustrative of anything. Third, you can replace now with other adverb(ial)s (at noon, today/tonight, later,...

Hello, Will.