I looked up in dictionary for the usage of close (which means near), and they said that close is adj. But I think that close in the highlighted sentence should be adv. Is that right? And close in the sentence below should be adv. too.
She stood close to the exit so that it would be easy to leave at the end of the concert.
Best Answer
The verb leave can take an object complement. Consider the following:
Happy is an adjective describing her.
Here, happily is an adverb describing how he left her (more specifically, it describes his emotions when he left her).
Here, close to tears is an adjectival phrase describing her. If it was an adverbial phrase, he would be the one close to tears.