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Near
Near is an English adjective and adverb.
In the phrase "near to my house", "near" is an adjective. As an adjective it has the gradative (comparative and superlative) forms "nearer" and "nearest":
- “The library is nearer to my house than the supermarket, but the post office is the nearest building to my house.”
The particle to may be omitted:
- “The library is near my house.”
When used without to, traditional grammar analyses this as a preposition. However, the presence of gradative forms argues against this, as no English prepositions have gradative forms.
This is a grammatical rule that’s probably unimportant for English language learners as this exception can be safely ignored as "near to" = "near.”
The adverb nearly has evolved a different meaning to near, meaning “almost, but not quite.”[1]