grammar - Is "now" a "preposition"?


My question starts from this question which asks about difference between currently and right now, which is not that complicated. However, in the middle of exchanging comments, I found a few points in relation to classifying adverbs and prepositions that I would like to ask here.


Wikipedia (I looked through other definitions, but it looks clearer) defines a preposition as:



The word preposition comes from Latin: prae ("before") and Latin: ponere ("to put"). This refers to the situation in Latin and Greek (and in English), where such words are placed before their complement, and are hence "pre-positioned".


A preposition comes before its complement; a postposition comes after its complement. English generally has prepositions rather than postpositions – words such as in, under and of precede their objects, as in in England, under the table, of Jane – although there are a small handful of exceptions including "ago" and "notwithstanding", as in "three days ago" and "financial limitations notwithstanding".



I am not asking a question about why ago could be considered as a preposition like notwithstanding which can be pre-positive and post-positive at the same time. I can guess why ago could be classified as a preposition, however, dictionaries say it is an adverb, not a preposition. I know dictionaries are for general public, not for grammarians.


The previous question about now seems to be more focused on the dual usages of now as an adverb and a noun. However, grammars like Oxford Modern English Grammar list now as a preposition (p.76).




  1. Now, why in the world is now a preposition?




  2. If now is a preposition, how about the adverb immediately?




  3. Can you call a word (part of speech) that takes no complement (or object) preposition? Then, why do we use the word preposition for such words? Wouldn't it be better if we use a brand-new grammatical term?






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