14/02/2020
What is the difference between ‘walk past’ or ‘walk pass’ grammatically?
“Past” has 3 meanings/parts of speech:
Noun - a thing that has already happened, as in “Don't bring up the past.”
Adjective - describing a time that has ended, as in “Christmas has past.”
Preposition - indicating that a noun is related to its verb specifically in a “beyond” or “by” position, as in:
“I drove past (“beyond” or “by”) the school.”
“The theater is past (“beyond” or “by”) the mall.”
“We walked past (“beyond” or “by”) the store.”
“Pass” can be a noun or a verb, and it has a variety of different meanings in both forms.
As a noun, it can be:
A ticket, as in, “You need the VIP pass to get past the general admission line for that nightclub.”
An act, as in, “If his pass is so great, then why hasn't the coach moved him past his second-string junior varsity position?”
A route, as in, “We took the mountain pass on our trip past grandma's house.”
As a verb, it can mean:
To transfer, as in, “By the time he passed the relay baton to me, the other teams had run way past me.”
To move, as in, “I wonder if we passed a gas station, because she said the restaurant was past an Exxon.”
To be successful, as in, “When I passed the exam, I moved past the rest of the class in our school rankings.”
So:
to “walk past” is correct because, in this construction, walk is a verb and past is a preposition. As such, past tells us that the noun it refers to (e.g, the store, the bus stop, the boys, etc.) is positioned beyond or by whomever is walking.
to “walk pass” is incorrect because the word pass is not a synonym for past.
“I walk passed” doesn't make any more sense than “I walk passing,” because pass as a verb means to pass. “Passing” is its present participle form, and “passed” is its past tense form. Placed together with the verb, “walk,” it becomes grammatically illogical.
Pass with an article (either “the” or “a”) in front of it makes it a place. “I walk the pass” is grammatically correct; but, for your purpose, it doesn't make any more sense than saying, “I walk the ticket.”
through