Adverbial prepositions as a subclass of adverbs

The subject of this paper is the so called adverbial prepositions in Russian, cf. vokrug (kostra) ‘around sth.’, daleko ot (doma) ‘far from sth.’, etc. By definition, an adverbial preposition either coincides with an adverb (cf. vokrug) or contains an adverb and a preposition (cf. daleko ot). I demonstrate that an adverbial preposition and the underlying adverb have the same meaning, the only difference between them being in the mode of expression of the main semantic actant, cf. Gorel koster, vokrug (preposition) kostra stojali liudi ‘A fire was burning, people were standing around it’ vs. Gorel koster, vokrug (adverb) stojali liudi ‘A fire was burning, people were standing around’. From the modern point of view, syntactic distinction is insufficient for interpreting such cases as different words (or different meanings of a word). So, an adverbial preposition and the underlying adverb should be interpreted as the same meaning of a given word. I argue that this word is an adverb. Thus, in Russian, in addition to predicative adverbs, there is another group of adverbs which are able to subordinate a noun group. Specific features of these adverbs are described in the paper.