I'm a little bit confused over the difference between the following sentences.
I went home. I went to home.
Could someone please explain the difference.
5
-
1The second one is ungrammatical.– tchrist ♦Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 4:26
-
Why is it ungrammatical ? if I went to park, I went to school are correct, why isn't I went to home correct too ?– Prasad WeeraCommented Apr 19, 2013 at 4:32
-
2"I went to park" isn't grammatical, unless you mean "I went to park the car"– user10893Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 4:40
-
@PrasadWeera: It is idiom. Normally, use to + article. The words home and school are idiomatic exceptions (there are more).– Cerberus - Reinstate MonicaCommented Apr 19, 2013 at 5:12
-
And there are different usages: I went to school (ie was part of the school community / went that day to study) vs I went to the school (perhaps to see if the reports about it being an Art Deco masterpiece were true). UK usage is I went to hospital (ie was an inpatient) but I went to the infirmary (either usage).– Edwin AshworthCommented Apr 19, 2013 at 8:22
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
The peculiar usage of home without the preposition 'to' is explained by paco2004 at “Adverbial Objectives?” at “English Forward” (englishforums.com):
Many English nouns and noun phrases can be used as adverbs. They are called "adverbial objectives". From the standpoint of word order, an adverbial objective is put as if it were an objective of a verb, but actually it works as an adverbial modifier of the verb. This sort of construct comes from an Old English grammar rule that allowed the use accusative cases of nouns as adverbs. For example, let's take an Old English sentence "He eode ham"[=He went home]. From the view of current English the word "ham" [home] would be treated as an adverb but it was the accusative of the noun "ham" in Old English.
The noun "ham" in Old English corresponds to 'to {his} home' rather than just '{his} home' in present-day English: i.e., the to is considered to be “built into” the home where required; this is possibly the only word this occurs with nowadays.
Other directional adverbial objectives / other adverbials not taking 'to' (there aren't many) include:
He's gone some place. (colloquial)
He's gone somewhere.
When did you come here?
When will you go there?
Scott - Слава Україні
7,31116 gold badges37 silver badges54 bronze badges
answered Apr 19, 2013 at 8:10
