The Classification of Words

§351. The combinability of at in th'e last example re­sembles, to some extent, that of an adverb. Cf. to be laughed away (off).
On the basis of sentences like
They bought chairs to sit о п. I have no pen to write with. Children like to read and to be read t o. The book was not looked for.
and the fact that many prepositions are homonymous with adverbs A. 1. Smirmtsky thinks it possible to regard prepo­sitions not as a separate part of speech, but as a group of adverbs ¹.
We are definitely against that view.
1. The number of instances when prepositions lose their right-hand connections is comparatively small. According
a '

¹ Op. cit., p. 376
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to V. I. Artyukhova ^г it occurs in 65 instances out of 4,575 in The White Monkey by J. Galsworthy. That means that in an overwhelming majority of cases (98,6 per cent) the combinability of prepositions differs from that of adverbs.

2. 
   Many prepositions such as to, at, for, from, among,
   with, of, into, out of, in front of, etc. are not homonymous
   with adverbs.
   
3. 
   Those prepositions that are homonymous with adverbs
   (down, along, before) are related with the latter by conversion
   (see § 57). These relations, as we know, are typical of English
   and connect words of different parts of speech. (Cf. home
   n. —home adv.; since adv. — since conj. — since prep.).
   

§ 352. Though the lexico-grammatical meaning, the com­binability and function of English prepositions are similar to those of the Russian counterparts, the role of prepositions in the two languages is different. This difference, however, depends not on the prepositions, but on the nouns they intro­duce.
The lexico-grammatical meaning of prepositions, 'rela­tions (of substances)', approximates to the'grammatical meaning of case (see § 81).
In the Russian language with its six-case system the rela­tions of substances are mostly denoted by case morphemes. Prepositions are but a secondary means of specifying these relations. In English the only positive case morpheme -'s shows but a very limited number of relations. So prepositions become a primary means of denoting relations of substances. . Their role, as we see, is determined by the grammatical system of the language.
In Russian the two means of expressing relations of sub­stances are interdependent. Certain prepositions go with certain cases (к дому, от дома, над домом, etc.). So the pre­position is closely connected with the noun it precedes. It cannot be used without the noun. In English the preposi­tion is much more independent. It can be separated from the noun, as in The house I speak of. Several prepositions may refer to one noun in the sentence, as in He ... played
¹ В И Артюхова. Характер связей предлога в современном английском языке. «Зб1рник праць 1'сторико-ф1лолопчного ф-ту ДДУ», Хсзркш, 1958, р. 120.
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with and read to the children- (Jerome). A preposition may refer not only to a word, but also to a word-combination (That is lor you to decide.) or a clause (7/ all depends on how he will act.).