从very near the school说副词修饰介词

 

课文中有Our house is very near the school.一句，有老师问very 可以修饰介词near吗？能否进一步说明？

我仍然首先介绍权威的语法书Cambridge Grammar of English的说明：

Prepositions express a relation in space between two or more entities or a relation in time between two events, or various other abstract relations.

然后明确说明：

Prepositions may be premodified. This applies mainly to prepositions with a gradable spatial or temporal meaning:

这里premodified就是前置修饰，也就是在介词之前可以有修饰词，主要是说明空间和时间，所以一般都是副词，偶然是短语。

Cambridge Grammar of English列举了以下例句：

They went deep into the forest.

She doesn’t like flying and only started to relax when we were high above the clouds.

It was too foggy to see but the hotel was only a short distance in front of them.

Be careful. The lamp’s just above your head.

They arrived just before the guests.

 

我们经常还可以看到这样的说法：

Thousand Islands? It’s far from here.

right under the left ventricle in the heart

shortly after the operation in the hospital

slightly under the skin surface in some ways

 

关于这一用法，其实更为有名、更为经典、更为常用的是very like，当然这里like是介词，不是动词。

常常提到的very like的用法是在莎士比亚中有一案例：

In Hamlet, when Hammy Jr. asks Polonius whether a cloud looks like a whale, Polly replies,

Very like a whale.

所以现在很多人还是这么用。

 

网上有材料说，以下用法也可以接受：

"Very whale-like" (PP replaced with adjective)

"Very similar to a whale" (synonymous phrasal preposition)

"Really like a whale" (synonymous adverb)

"Exactly like a whale", "Truly like a whale", "Somewhat like a whale" (different adverb)

"Nothing like a whale" (adverb replaced with a word of arguable lexical class)

"Very near a whale" (different preposition)

 

OED引用了以下very like案例：

1719 De Foe Crusoe i. xᴠɪ, ― It was very like the Tree we call Fustic.

1710 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 25 Oct., ― Addison’s sister is a sort of a wit, very like him.

1727 A. Hamilton New Acc. E. Ind. II. xxxɪx. 81 ― The Durean is another excellent Fruit, but offensive to some Peoples Noses, for it smells very like human Excrements, but when once tasted the Smell vanishes.

1868 Yates Rock Ahead II. 245 ― Wooded uplands suggested good cover-shooting; broad expanse of heath looked very like rabbits.

1857 R. Tomes Amer. in Japan vi. 135 ― The jamana••is very like the red-wood of Brazil and Mexico.

1865 Pall Mall G. 25 Oct. 10 ― Gladiateur’s colours are blue and red, and Nu’s are cerise (which is very like red) and blue.

1836 Sir G. Head Home Tour 144 ― The town of Dewsbury••celebrated for••grinding old garments into new; literally tearing in pieces fusty old rags••by a machine called a ‘devil’, till a substance very like the original is reproduced.

1926 F. Z. Snoop Reproduction & Sexual Evolution 83 ― Havelock Ellis quotes other cases, even butterflies (if insects may be here included) who possess excrescences on their penes, which of necessity must cause pain, or something very like pain, during coition.

 

Very还可以表示 “very much” or “very far”，用于修饰介词。

Are you for Obama? Yes, I’m a little bit for him, just not very for him.

Are you against the draft? Yes, I’m very against it.

Is that over your head? Yes, but not very over.

Walk down the street past my house, but not very past it.

If you can be more into something, you can be very into it. Is there anything you’re less into?

No thank you, that whole scene is very beneath me.

Is the end near? Yes, I believe we’re very near the end now.

Will the parade pass near here? Yes, it will pass very near us. It shall pass very near, indeed.

They are very on top of music and very adamant about what they carry.

I just really was very on the edge. Very on the edge, for a while.

He’s very off his rocker today.

She is really very behind the times, isn’t she?

You’re not very with it today, are you?

 

还有“Very out of the way”这一用法。

I think it’s very out of character for him.

Things can be very out of place.

Or very out of date.

And very out of the way.

 

结论：

1．Very near是一种符合规定的常用用法，符合2中的表示空间程度的用法。

2．副词可以前置于一些介词短语，进行修饰，表示时间与空间的程度。

3．Very like是一种常用用法。

4．Very有时代替very much, very far修饰介词短语。

5．Very out of the way也是一个固定短语。