What part of speech does “here” have in “I am here”?
What part of speech does here have in the following sentence?
I am here.
I say that in that sentence, here must be an adverb because:
- It modifies the verb am by describing where I am.
- Am is a “being” verb in this instance, not a “linking” verb.
My friend contends that here is a noun because the word here is, in this instance, defined as this place, which in Merriam-Webster is the definition for the noun here.
Both you and your friend are incorrect; sorry.
But that's not your fault; you're at a disadvantage,
if you take your definitions of "part of speech" from English books.
They're hopeless; pay no attention to them.
Here is a proximal deictic locative predicate in the sentence
- I am here.
It does not modify the verb am.
It does not modify anything, in fact.
(Be) here is the Predicate in the sentence.
The logical form is
HERE (I)
The am is indeed an auxiliary verb, meaning -- if anything -- 'be located (at)'.
Executive Summary: Calling something an "adverb" is a confession of ignorance.
I'm in agreement with John Lawler that here is not an adverb here: as he says, 'It does not modify the verb am.' One has to really stretch the meaning of modify for that not to be true (which some linguists do).
Intuitively, though, here is more closely associated with the noun group (a pronoun in this case) than with the verb - the speaker's location rather than 'how' he is existing. We could compare 'I am cold', where 'am' is obviously a delexical verbal link between subject and some attribute. But 'cold' is adjectival, describing an inherent characteristic, while 'here' expresses the reference of a noun or noun-phrase in the context, rather than attributes (which are expressed by adjectives). We're almost at the definition of determiners here, but there is more semantic content to 'here'. I think that words like 'here', 'there', 'home' (in 'Is he home?' 'He went home') need their own category (and a working name for this is locative / directional particles).
I am not sure how to answer the question. Most of the answerers have given well reasoned and well supported accounts. It is possible that we have to accept there are different, equally valid, ways of slicing up the language, as long as they are internally consistent.
However, the problem of supposed adverbs is not confined to the copula (the verb to be)
Most, if not all, intransitive verbs can be modified by ‘adverbs’.
“Where are you going?” “Over there.” This might be cheating. My exact meaning depends on my pointing into the distance or at a map.
“How do you feel?” “I feel well.”
“How are you?”. “Well.” « Comment allez vous? » « Bien » “Come sta?”. “Bene”. Even «Τι κάνετε;» «Καλά»
French and Italian have different intransitive verbs for how are you: “How are you going”; “How are you standing”. Greek preserves what in ancient Greek gets called the adverbial accusative of an adjective. Literally, “*What are you doing?” “Good things”! We have a similar adverbial usage of the words good and great. This probably originates from American English.
Here and there are certainly deictic words. This just means they are words of showing (from the Greek deiknumi). The word is equivalent to the Latin-derived demonstrative, familiar to British of my generation.
The sentence “I am here” conveys no information other than that someone is claiming to be somewhere. To have its full meaning, we need to have other information, such as prior knowledge (of the identity of the speaker and, for example, of the fact that s/he has been traveling to a destination already known me). Or perhaps I am a small child and my father is pointing at a spot on a plan he has made of the room in which they both are.
None of this changes what I think is the simple fact that at least for everyday users of the language, ‘here’ is a kind of adverb (a demonstrative, or deictic, if you prefer, adverb). It modifies the verb am, just as well can.