The phrase on that fateful day is

Analyze the question

You are asked to identify the grammatical function of the phrase "on that fateful day." The original JAMB question likely had a sentence such as "He died on that fateful day." Here, the phrase tells us when something happened.

Explain the concept

A phrase is named by the job it does in the sentence:

• Noun phrase: acts as a subject or object (e.g., The tall boy ran).
• Verb phrase: main verb plus its auxiliaries (e.g., has been running).
• Adjectival phrase: describes a noun (e.g., a boy of great intelligence).
• Adverbial phrase: tells us when, where, how, or why an action happened (e.g., in the morning, under the table).

Show the solution

1. "On that fateful day" starts with the preposition on, followed by the noun phrase "that fateful day." That makes it a prepositional phrase.
2. Prepositional phrases function as adjectival or adverbial phrases.
3. Ask: what does it modify? It tells when the event happened, so it modifies the verb. This is an adverbial function (an adverb of time).
4. It is not a verb phrase, since it has no verb.
5. It is not a stand-alone noun phrase, because the preposition "on" makes it a prepositional phrase. It does not act as a subject or object.
6. It is not adjectival, because it does not describe a noun. It answers "when?"

Identify the answer

The phrase is an adverbial phrase (of time), so the answer is A.

Tip

Whenever a phrase begins with a preposition (on, in, at, under, by), ask what it answers. If it answers when, where, how, or why, it is adverbial. If it describes a noun, it is adjectival. Also, ignore the noun inside the phrase: "day" is a noun, but the whole phrase is not a noun phrase.