Originally Posted By: Faldage
[quote=zmjezhd](north/east/south/west/home)

Pullum and Huddleston classify all of the above as prepositions.


Altho I haven't read CGEL, my understanding is that the argument goes that there's no reason to reclassify a preposition as an adverb when it isn't followed by a noun phrase. For instance, why classify "down" different ways in "I fell down the stairs" and "I fell down". After all, verbs are still verbs whether or not they are followed by noun phrases.