After March 2023, life will be back to normal.
Is the bit "After March 2020" an adverbial clause or a prepositional clause?
After eight hours, they reached the peak.
Same doubt about "After eight hours".
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Andrew Leach
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res
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After March 2023, life will be back to normal.
It's important to distinguish category and function.
"After" is a preposition so "after March 2023" can only belong to the category preposition phrase.
The PP is functioning as a modifier in clause structure, more specifically an adjunct, so we have:
Category: preposition phrase
Function: modifier (adjunct of time)
The same applies to your other example.
Note that the head word in a phrase determines its phrasal category (preposition phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase and so on).
BillJ
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It's a prepositional phrase that adverbially modifies what ensues.
You're assuming it's one or the other, but that's a false assumption as prepositional phrases are modifying phrases, either adjectival or adverbial, and it just so happens that it's adverbial in your sentence. As such, it is both a prepositional phrase and an adverbial phrase there.
What it isn't is a subordinate clause, not adverbial or any other kind. In order to be a subordinate clause, it would have to contain a verb. It doesn't, so it's not.
For further information, you may refer to the following link and scroll down to the heading "Understand what prepositional phrases do in a sentence":
Benjamin Harman
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