including - adverb or adjective?

[donnach]

Several people went to the party, including John.

Because I can move the phrase "including John" to different places in the sentence without changing its overall meaning, I believe "including John" is an adverbial participial phrase.

Is this the correct? And is this the correct way to determine if "including John" is adverbial, adjectival, or nominal?

Or is it more the question of where the phrase is placed?

Several people, including John, went to the party. Modifies people?

Several people went, including John, to the party. Modifies went?


Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Donna

[Soup]

Adverbs tell is when, where, why, and how. Does the phrase including John do that or does it tell us more about the noun phrase Several people?

Ex: Several people, including John, went to the party.
Ex: Several people went to the party, including John.

Including in the second example, according to the Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | Date: 1998 (cited here), functions as a preposition:

Participial prepositions and conjunctions Apparent exceptions to the rule that participles should be properly attached are a number of participle forms that now function as prepositions, such as following in ‘There was tremendous clearing up to do following the storm’, and including in ‘We all enjoyed ourselves, including the dog’; and participle forms that are now conjunctions, such as providing (that) and provided (that) in ‘Everything will be all right, providing/provided you don't panic’, and given in ‘Given the difficulties, I'd say it was a success.’

[donnach]

The question I initially had before I posted here was: Is including a preposition? I searched around a bit on the Internet and found no support at all for that idea so I moved on to figuring out the function of the participial phrase it's usually part of. It feels good to know that it can be a preposition in some instances.

The only thing I don't understand is if the first example modifies people, why doesn't the second? Is it because adjectival phrases (participial or not) or adjectives must be adjacent to the noun they modify?

Thanks,

Donna

[donnach]

Adverbs tell is when, where, why, and how. Does the phrase including John do that or does it tell us more about the noun phrase Several people?

Ex: Several people, including John, went to the party.
Ex: Several people went to the party, including John.

Including in the second example, according to the Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language | Date: 1998 (cited here), functions as a preposition:

Participial prepositions and conjunctions Apparent exceptions to the rule that participles should be properly attached are a number of participle forms that now function as prepositions, such as following in ‘There was tremendous clearing up to do following the storm’, and including in ‘We all enjoyed ourselves, including the dog’; and participle forms that are now conjunctions, such as providing (that) and provided (that) in ‘Everything will be all right, providing/provided you don't panic’, and given in ‘Given the difficulties, I'd say it was a success.’

I am still struggling to understand why including John can't be an adjectival phrase in both instances. Why is only the second example considered a prepositional phrase? Is it different in function in some way than the first?

Thanks,

Donna