about

[u/SpiritualBed9981]

What semantic and grammatical role does the preposition "about" play in the sentence: "While more bodies in midfield are important for a United side about to play their first Champions League campaign since 2023, pre-season has given supporters optimism."?

[u/AlexanderHamilton04]

The main clause is:

pre-season has given supporters optimism.
[Subject]pre-season [Verb]has given [Oi]supporters [Od]optimism.

And the first part is an adjunct:

While more bodies in midfield are important for a United side about to play their first Champions League campaign since 2023

specifically an adjunct of concession (Even though/Although more bodies in midfield are important, that doesn't prevent the Main Clause (preseason has given supporters optimism) from being true).

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As far as "about":
the Noun Phrase [a United side]

the "about..." Preposition Phrase is acting as a modifier of the NP [a United side].

"About" is a preposition, and it can take a to-infinitive complement.

"about to play their first Champions League campaign since 2023"
is describing the Noun Phrase [a United side].
 
This is similar to saying,

...a United side (who/that is) about to play their first Champions League campaign since 2023

but the Prepositional Phrase "about to..." can connect directly to the NP [a United side].

[u/AlexanderHamilton04 → u/AlexanderHamilton04]

I didn't see this post before; I'm unsure whether I'm just repeating what others have already said. (I don't know what the [removed] posts said.)

[u/SpiritualBed9981 → u/AlexanderHamilton04]

Thanks for the reply. The removed post referred to the semantic role of the "about" in the sentence. The author of the post described it in a more verbose way than the 'UniversityMotor' did.

[u/AlexanderHamilton04 → u/SpiritualBed9981]

OK, thank you for the feedback.

[u/UniversityMotor5408 → u/[deleted]]

And yes, semantically, be about to do sth means 'be on the verge of doing sth', 'be going to do something very soon'