Can 'home' be an adjective as well as an adverb or a noun?

Question

All the dictionaries I've consulted say that 'home' is an adverb and a noun, depending on context. For example:

(1) He went home. [adverb]

(2) He is at home. [noun]

Also, there's this answer of John Lawler's that seemingly resolves the issue of why 'home' sometimes should be analyzed as an adverb.

But what about this example?

(3) I can find my way home.

Can you also say that home in (3) is an adverb? It seems to me that home in (3) cannot be an adverb, because I think it functions as a complement of the noun way and that my way home as a whole is a noun phrase.

Even if we accept John Lawler's analysis in the above quoted answer of considering home "one of those idiomatic locative nouns that are allowed to drop determiners and occasionally even prepositions," we cannot say home in (3) is an example of "how a noun can be used as an adverb", because (3) can be analyzed as John Lawler suggests:

(3') I can find my way (to my) home.

Here, to my home is not an adverbial prepositional phrase but an adjectival prepositional phrase that acts as a complement of the noun way. So, to take what John Lawler said and adapt it to (3), "what it is is an [adjectival] prepositional phrase that has been stripped of its prepositions and determiners, leaving only a naked noun to stand for the whole phrase. That's how a noun can be used as an [adjective]."

Now, does this mean we should call home a noun, an adverb, or an adjective, depending on context?

Answer 1

Home is a preposition according to modern grammars such as Oxford Modern English Grammar (Aarts 2011) or The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum 2002).

According to such grammars, although prepositions often—prototypically in fact—take noun phrase complements, this is not an essential feature of the word category. In the same way that verbs that don't take objects are still verbs, prepositions that don't take objects are still prepositions.

First of all, notice that home patterns like other preposition phrases in the Original Poster's example, as a complement of the noun way:

• I can find my way out of the building.
• I can find my way out.
• I can find my way through.
• I can find my way through the forest.
• I can find my way home.

In addition home can be modified by the specialised adverbs right and straight, which modify prepositions but not usually adverbs:

• Go straight home.
• Go straight past the station
• I have to go right home.
• Go right through the forest.

In addition, home cannot be modified by the adverb very which freely modifies adverbs (at least those with a gradable meaning) but not prepositions (even those which are gradable):

• *I went very home. (ungrammatical)
• *I went very past the station. (ungrammatical)
• I went very slowly.

Unlike adverbs, prepositions such as home can function as locative complements of the verb BE:

• Are you in the building?
• Are you home yet?
• *Are you locally? (ungrammatical)

Unlike adverbs , preposition phrases commonly modify nouns:

• people home alone
• the man in a hat
• *the locally shop (ungrammatical noun phrase)
• *the shop locally (ungrammatical noun phrase)
• *the beautifully woman (ungrammatical noun phrase)
• *the woman beautifully (ungrammatical noun phrase)

Thus the evidence would seem to suggest that home is a preposition and not an adverb.

Answer 2

To address the question in the title, I would say that "home" can certainly be an adjective as in (as one commenter noted) "home cooking" (as opposed to fancy restaurant-style cooking), "home base" (as opposed to other bases), or "home office" (as opposed to an office outside one's residence.)