ADVERB

1.     ADVERB.

A.    Definition Of Adverb

An adverb is a word that changes or qualifies the meaning of a verb, adjective, other adverb, clause, sentence or any other word or phrase, except that it does not include the adjectives and determiners that directly modify nouns. Adverbs are traditionally regarded as one of the parts of speech, although the wide variety of the functions performed by words classed as adverbs means that it is hard to treat them as a single uniform category.

An adverb indicates manner, time, place, cause, or degree and answers questions such as "how," "when," "where," "how much".

While some adverbs can be identified by their characteristic "ly" suffix, most of them must be identified by untangling the grammatical relationships within the sentence or clause as a whole. Unlike an adjective, an adverb can be found in various places within the sentence.

Ex:

§   I found the film incredibly dull.

§  The meeting went well and the directors wereextremely happy with the outcome!

§  Crabs are known for walking sideways.

§  Only members are allowed to enter.

§  I often have eggs for breakfast.

§  However, I shall not eat fried eggs again.

Adverbs of manner describe how something happens. Where there are two or more verbs in a sentence, adverb placement affects the meaning. Some commonly used adverbs of manner include:

carefully
correctly
eagerly
easily
fast
loudly
patiently
quickly
quietly
and well.

Consider the following example:

She decided to write her paper. (no adverbs) 
She quickly decided to write her paper. (her decision was quick)
She decided to write her paper quickly. (her writing was quick)

Adverbs of place describe where something happens. Most adverbs of place are also used as prepositions. Some commonly used examples include the following:

abroad
anywhere
downstairs
here
home
in
nowhere
out
outside
somewhere
there
underground
upstairs.

I wanted to go upstairs.

She has lived in the city since June. (in the city – prepositional phrase)

Adverbs of purpose describe why something happens. Here are some common examples:

So

so that

to

in order to

because

since

accidentally

intentionally
and purposely

Jenny walks carefully to avoid falling.

Bob accidentally broke the vase.

Adverbs of frequency describe how often something happens. The following adverbs are commonly used in this way:

always
every
never
often
rarely
seldom
sometimes
and usually.

Mackenzie gets a ride from her brother every day.

The fish usually swims near the top of its tank.

Adverbs of time describe when something happens. These examples are commonly used:

after
already
during
finally
just
last
later
next
now
recently
soon
then
tomorrow
when
while
and yesterday.

He came home before dark.

It will be too dark to play outside soon.

Jessica finished her supper first.

Andy left school early.

Some adverbs often get overused, such as very, extremely, and really. Using there is/are or it is at the beginning of a sentence adds nothing. Sentences with these adverb phrases become wordy, boring, and less clear. Look at some examples:

* There are many bird species living in the sanctuary. Many bird species live in the sanctuary.

* It is important to hold hands when crossing the street. Holding hands when crossing the street is important.

* There may be more than one way to solve the problem. The problem may be solved in more than one way.

2.     Formation of Adverbs

By adding –ly to an adjective:

Strange, strangely; brave, bravely; beautiful, beautifully; able, ably; cheerful, cheerfully; modest, modestly; probable, probably; selfish, selfishly; vigorous, vigorously

·         She is a beautiful girl. (Adjective – beautiful)

·         She smiled beautifully. (Adverb – beautifully)

·         He is a brave man. (Adjective – brave)

·         He fought bravely. (Adverbs – bravely)

·         He is a strange person. (Adjective – strange)

·         He behaved strangely. (Adverb – strangely)

By adding the suffixes wise, ways, ward and wards

She glanced sideways at the visitor.

I looked upwards.

Let’s march forward.

He crawled crab-wise across the floor.

Note that most of these words can be used both as adverbs and adjectives. For instance, we can speak of an upward trend (Here upward is an adjective qualifying the noun trend) or a sideways glance (Here sideways is an adjectives qualifying the noun glance.).

Some compounds made of a preposition and a noun are adverbs.

Examples are: afoot (on foot), abed, aboard, ahead, away, besides, today, tomorrow etc.

Some compounds made of a preposition and an adjective are adverbs.

Examples are: abroad, along, aloud, around, anew, behind, below etc.
Some compounds made of an adverb and a preposition are also adverbs:

Examples are: hereafter, hereby, herein, wherefore, thereupon, therein, henceforth etc.

Words used as both adjectives and adverbs

Some words can be used both as adjectives and adverbs. Examples are: early, easy, daily, leisurely etc.

·         He is an early riser. (Here early is used as an adjective qualifying the noun riser.)

·         I got up early today. (Here early is used as an adverb qualifying the verb got up.)

·         It is an easy job. (Here easy is used as an adjective qualifying the noun job.)

·         Take it easy. (Here easy is used as an adverb qualifying the verb take.)

Adverb phrases

Read the sentences given below:

He drives carefully.

He drives with care.

Here carefully is an adverb showing the manner in which he drives. With care is a phrase which means the same as carefully and does the work of an adverb. Hence it is anadverb phrase. It is possible to substitute an adverb phrase for an adverb.

Most adverb phrases begin with a preposition. Note that not all adverbs can be changed into an adverb phrase or vice versa.

He fought courageously.

He fought with courage.

She searched everywhere.

She searched all over the place.

He looked at me suspiciously.

He looked at me withsuspicion.

The workers hurried towards their homes.

The workers hurried homeward.

3.     I identify adjectives and adverbs

The above explanations are all well and good, but you might be wondering how you can identify adjectives and adverbs just by looking at a sentence. We've established some basic rules:

1.     Adjectives, although much simpler to use than adverbs, don’t give off any tell-tale hints that they are indeed, adjectives. The best way to find an adjective is to look for the nouns (people, places, things, or ideas) or pronouns (words that replace nouns) within a sentence and then decide if there are any words that describe the nouns or pronouns. Here’s an example with the nouns italicized:

Your dog ate my baseball hat.

At first glance, you might be tempted to say baseball is a noun, but upon closer inspection, we see that, in this case, the wordbaseball actually describes the noun hat. Therefore, baseball is an adjective in this sentence.

2.    Many adverbs end with the suffix –ly. Searching for words that end in –ly is a good way to find adverbs. Here’s an example:

If you’ll kindly give me my ticket, I’ll be on my way.

You can probably see that the only word ending in –ly is the word kindly. Upon closer inspection, you should realize kindly is describing the verb give, which means kindly is indeed an adverb.

Exceptions

Some words have the same form whether they are used as adjectives or adverbs. Here are some examples:

(Adjective) — That is a fast speedboat.

(Adverb) — He stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. 

(Adjective) — The ground was hard.

(Adverb) — They all worked hard to meet the project deadline.

In addition, please note that all adverbs do not end in –ly. Here’s a short list of adverbs that don’t end in –ly:

afterwards, almost, always, even, far, fast, less, more, never, not, often, too, very, and well.

Referens

1.    ^ Huddleston, Rodney (1988). English grammar: an outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 7. doi:10.2277/0521311527. ISBN 0-521-32311-8.

2.    ^ Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads—a cross linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University press.

3.    ^ Haegeman, Liliane. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

§  Ernst, Thomas. 2002. The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

§  Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. MIT Press,