While learning English, I was taught not to put 'to' in front of 'home'. I.e. "go to home" is incorrect, you should say "go home".
Is there a reason (maybe historical) for this?
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In this phrase "Go home", home is not a noun but an adverb Specifically, it is an adverb of place So you do not need a preposition like "to" prior to home. The Longman Dictionary specifies
Other similar adverbs of place are listed below, and you can see you can use the same rule to all of them
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I've never been happy with the suggestion of adverbial status of nouns that can just as easily be parsed as objects. i.e. If "home" is where "I am going", then "home" is the object of the verb. For it to be an adverb, it would have to modify "going", which it doesn't (with "I am going quickly", "quickly" clearly modifies how the "going" is carried out). The difference between nouns where we use "to" and where we don't is more to do with the non-specific meaning of the object noun. "Home" is a non-specific place, in this context, in that you cannot put a determiner in front of it without losing its (intrinsic/abstract/personal) meaning: i.e. none of these work: -- "I am going the home." -- "I am going that home." -- "I am going a home". For specific places (you can tell they are specific, because you need a determiner to specify which one), the "to" is required. I don't want to shout down Longmans, because they do an extremely difficult job very well, but sometimes they do drift a little from reality. |
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