Teacher Discussion Forums

Without getting into the endless debate as to whether the verb and preposition combinations are phrasal verbs or not, I was wondering about arriving at one list of particles which are never adverbs and another of ones which are never prepositions. It's slightly harder than you think: just when you think you've nailed a preposition, then an adverbial use occurs to you. "About" seems to be a good candidate until you remember "turn the boat about".

Anyway, so far, I reckon these are always prepositions:

of with to from into onto upon for towards among like between (?)

and these are always adverbs:

away back forwards backwards

More?