Preposition or Adverb

This short lesson deals with the question of whether a word is a preposition or an adverb.

Very often we will have the same word and it can be used as a preposition or an adverb and this can really cause confusion for learners but there is a relatively simple way to tell the difference if there’s an object it’s a preposition we can also ask the question what to make it clearer.

if there’s no object then it’s an adverb but look at the first example if the word has an object then it’s a preposition those small children often color outside the lines outside what the lines is the answer and the lines is also the object of outside therefore outside is being used as a preposition here and outside the lines is an adverbial phrase describing how they color color being used as a verb here.

if there’s no object then it’s an adverb why don’t you all go and play outside while the question outside what.

Has no answer because there is no object after the word outside therefore outside.

In this example is an adverb specifically an adverb of place and please feel free to check the adverb sanction for more information on this.