Michelle Kaplan

There were a lot of grammar mistakes that were common in my regional dialect, but this wasn't one of them.

I didn't ever hear this.

So this is interesting.

It will always be followed by a noun or a noun phrase if it's a preposition.

For example, near my house, near the restaurant, near the hotel, near London.

These are nouns that have either a possessive pronoun, an article.

So it makes it a noun phrase.

Exactly, right?

And so all of these nouns are a direct object.

That gets a little more complicated.

Maybe we could talk about direct objects on another episode.

Sure.

But it's easier, I think, to just think of it as needing, you know, it will always have a noun or a noun phrase after it.

Yeah, so both near and nearby function as an adverb.

And when it's used as an adverb, it always means not far away.

So nearby typically describes location.

For example, there aren't any gas stations nearby.

Yes.

And near can also describe location as an adverb in the same way, but it's much less common.

You could say the dog stayed near while we talk, while we talked, right?