adverbialnominal

An adverbial nominal, also called an adverbial noun phrase, is a nominal expression that functions as an adverbial in a clause. It provides information about time, place, or manner without forming part of a prepositional phrase. The head of the phrase is typically a noun, often with determiners or modifiers such as adjectives or demonstratives.

Syntactically, adverbial nominals occupy the same role as other adverbials, modifying the verb or the clause as a whole. They are especially common with temporal meaning, and can appear in sentence-initial, sentence-medial, or sentence-final positions. They are generally more compact than corresponding prepositional phrases, and their productivity varies by language and register. In English, examples include the next day, the following morning, the day after, or the same way, used to modify the action: The next day we resumed the project. Do it the same way. The day after the election, prices fell.

Types of adverbial nominals include temporal expressions (the next day, the following morning), and manner expressions (the same way). They can also express other adverbial senses in some languages, such as general timing or occasionally purposive nuance, depending on context and grammar.

The status of adverbial nominals in theories of syntax varies. Some frameworks treat them as a specialized subclass of noun phrases that function adverbially; others view them as a cross-cutting category that includes certain NP-based time or manner expressions. They are typically distinguished from true adverbs by their noun-headed structure and from prepositional adverbials by their lack of a governing preposition.

See also: noun phrase, adverbial phrase, time expression.