Adverb
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An adverb is a part of speech. It is a word that modifies any other part of language: verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences and other adverbs, except for nouns; modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives.
Adverbs typically answer such questions as how?, when?, where?, in what way?, or how often? This function is called the adverbial function, and is realised not just by single words (i.e., adverbs) but by adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.
An adverb as adverbial may be a sentence element in its own right.
- They treated her well. (SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + ADVERBIAL)
Alternatively, an adverb may be contained within a sentence element.
- An extremely small child entered the room. (SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT)
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[edit] Adverbs in English
In English, adverbs of manner (answering the question how?) are often derived from adjectives by using the suffix -ly. The -ly is a common, but not reliable, marker of a word being an adverb, since many adjectives also end in -ly. In some cases, the suffix -wise may be used to derive adverbs from typical nouns. Historically, -wise competed with a related form -ways and won out against it. In a few words, like sideways, -ways survives; words like clockwise show the transition. Again, it is not a foolproof indicator of a word being an adverb. There are a number of other suffixes in English that derive adverbs from other word classes, and there are also many adverbs that are not morphologically indicated at all. Comparative Adverbs include more, most, least, and less.
Formally, adverbs in English are inflected in terms of comparison, just like adjectives. The comparative and superlative forms of adverbs are generated by adding -er and -est. Many adverbs are also periphrastically indicated by the use of more or most. Adverbs also take comparisons with as ... as, less, and least. The usual form pertaining to adjectives or adverbs is called the positive.
[edit] Examples of adverbs in adverbial functions
Contrary to what many people think, "adverb" and "adverbial" are two different things. An "adverb" is a type of word that is a member of the adverb part of speech class, while an "adverbial" is a syntactic function.
The following examples illustrate adverbs in adverbial functions in English.
[edit] as an adjective-modifier
In the following examples, the adverb, as an adjective-modifier, is highlighted in bold. The adjective it modifies is shown in italics.
- His poetry is very beautiful.
- The meaning of this passage is abundantly clear.
- That sign is hardly visible.
Adverbs that modify adjectives typically express something about the degree of the adjective, such as `very'. Such adverbs are usually called degree adverbs for obvious reasons. Some adjectives aren't gradeable at all, as for example the adjective prime, as in prime number. Such adjectives are much harder to modify with an adverb than other ones.
[edit] as an adverb-modifier
In the following examples, the adverb, as an adverb-modifier, is highlighted in bold. The adverb that it modifies is shown in italics.
- I know that he can write more clearly.
- The sun came out quite suddenly.
- This species is the slightly slower-growing one.
In general, it holds that adverbs that end in -ly can be modified by the same adverbs that can modify the adjective that results from removing the -ly ending.
[edit] adverb modifies a preposition
In the following examples the adverb modifies a preposition.
- She is standing very near the door.
- She's going directly to the store.
[edit] as a verb-modifier
In the following examples, the adverb, as a verb-modifier, is highlighted in bold. The verb that it modifies is shown in italics.
- It is tiring to run qick.
- My sister laughs loudly.
- The sun shone brightly.
- The captain went boldly.
- The farmer worked hard.
- The minister spoke well.
Such adverbs as those exemplified above are normally called manner adverbs. Manner adverbs can get different readings depending on where they are placed in the clause. For example, the following two sentences do not mean the same thing.
- Clumsily, John sat down.
- John sat down clumsily.
In the first sentence, John is judged to be clumsy on the basis of the fact that he sat down, i.e. he shouldn't have sat down in the first place. In the sencond sentence, it is the manner in which he sat down that is judged clumsy, not the fact that he did so. In the first sentence, we say that the adverb is subject-oriented. In the second sentence. it is a manner adverb. For more on this distinction, see (Jackendoff 1972, Ernst 2002) 20:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)20:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)~~
[edit] adverb modifies a verb phrase
Verb phrases talk about events that happen or states that hold. There are adverbs that can modify such phrases as well, saying something about whether the event/state happened before, when, where, whether it happened late or early, and how often it happens.
- Joan always [eats an apple for breakfast].
- Bill finally[handed in his paper].
- Joan still [eats apples for breakfast].
- Bill soon[hands in another paper].
- Joan [met Bill] here.
[edit] adverb modifies a whole sentence
In the following examples the adverb modifies a whole sentence. See disjunct (linguistics).
- Perhaps she went home.
- Unfortunately, she went home.
- Allegedly, she went home.
- Frankly, I don't care.
In these cases, the adverb says something about the entire proposition expressed by the sentence. For example, in the third sentence, allegedly adds the information that the speakers evidence for what is expressed by the rest of the sentence is indirect. Many sentence adverbs say something about the relation between the speaker of the sentence and its content. Such sentence adverbs are often called speaker-oriented adverbs. There are (at least) four different kinds of speaker-oriented adverbs:
- Modal adverbs. These address the speakers knowledge concerning the rest of the sentence. They may mean that the speaker knows the rest of the proposition to be true (example: `certainly'); that s/he finds it likely that the proposition is true (example: `probably'), or that s/he does not know it to be false (example: `possibly', `maybe/).
- Evidential adverbs. These report the nature of the evidence the speaker has that the rest of the proposition is true. Examples include `evidently', `allegedly', and `obviously'.
- Evaluative adverbs. These report the speaker's evaluation of the rest of the proposition, as good, bad, strange, etc. Examples include `(un)fortunately', `amazingly', `strangely (enough)'.
- Speech act adverbs. These allow the speaker to comment on the very act of uttering the sentence, for example, by staing that it is brief, blunt, hontest, etc. There are few simple adverbs in this category, and more complex adverbials, like `briefly speaking'. Examples include: `honestly', 'frankly' and 'briefly'.
The word hopefully is somewhat controversial among adverbs in that it follows the standard rules of sentence modifiers, but is frowned upon by many linguistic prescriptivists. Reasons include presumed ambiguity, but this exists with many sentence modifiers. This is sometimes seen as a hypercorrection. (Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good English, Third Edition, 1999, Penguin Group, London)
[edit] adverb links one sentence to another
In the following examples the adverb links one sentence to another. See conjunct.
- It was hot. She, therefore, went swimming.
- It was raining. She went swimming, however.
- She woke up. Then she got out of bed.
[edit] Adverbs as a "catch all" category
Adverbs are considered a part of speech in traditional English grammar, which is derived from Latin grammar, and are still included as a part of speech in grammar taught in schools and used in dictionaries. However, modern grammarians recognize that words traditionally grouped together as adverbs serve a number of different functions. Some would go so far as to call adverbs a "catch all" category that includes all words that don't belong to one of the other parts of speech.
A more logical approach to dividing words into classes relies on recognizing which words can be used in a certain context. For example, a noun is a word that can be inserted in the following template to form a grammatical sentence:
- The ____ is red.
When this approach is taken, it is seen that adverbs fall into a number of different categories.
For example, some adverbs can be used to modify an entire sentence, whereas others can not. Even when a sentential adverb has other functions, the meaning is often not the same. For example, in the sentences She gave birth naturally and Naturally, she gave birth, the word naturally has different meanings (actually the first sentence could be interpreted in the same way as the second, but context makes it clear which is meant). Naturally as a sentential adverb means something like "of course" and as a verb-modifying adverb means "in a natural manner". The "hopefully" controversy demonstrates that the class of sentential adverbs is a closed class (there is resistance to adding new words to the class), whereas the class of adverbs that modify verbs is not.
Words like very and particularly afford another useful example. We can say Jim is very fast, but not Jim very won the race. These words can modify adjectives but not verbs. On the other hand, there are words like here and there that cannot modify adjectives. We can say The sofa looks good there but not It is a there beautiful sofa. The fact that many adverbs can be used in more than one of these functions can confuse this issue, and it may seem like splitting hairs to say that a single adverb is really two or more words that serve different functions. However, this distinction can be useful, especially considering adverbs like naturally that have different meanings in their different functions.
Not is an interesting case. Grammarians have a difficult time categorizing it, and it probably belongs in its own class (Haegeman 1995, Cinque 1999)
[edit] Non-English adverbs
Other languages may form adverbs in different ways, if they are used at all:
- In Dutch and German, adverbs have the basic form of their corresponding adjectives and are not inflected (except for comparison in which case they are inflected like adjectives, too).
- In Danish adverbs are typically derived from adjectives by adding the suffix '-t'. Danish adjectives, like English ones, are inflected in terms of comparison by adding '-ere' (comparative) or '-est' (superlative). In inflected forms of adjectives the '-t' is absent. Periphrastic comparison is also possible.
- In Romance languages many adverbs are formed from adjectives (often the feminine form) by adding '-mente' (Spanish, Italian) or '-ment' (French). Other adverbs are single forms which are invariable.
- In Esperanto, adverbs are not formed from adjectives but are made by adding '-e' directly to the word root. Thus, from bon are derived bone, "well", and 'bona', 'good'.
- Austronesian languages appear to form comparative adverbs by repeating the root (as in WikiWiki), similarly to the plural noun.
- Japanese forms adverbs, depending on the adjective's nature, either by changing the final syllable from い to く or by changing the particle that follows from な to に. Certain adjectives cannot be made into adverbs, among other restrictions on their use.
- In Irish, an adverbial form is made by preceding the adjective with "go" (literally "until").
- In Modern Greek, an adverb is most commonly made by adding the ending -α or -ως to the root of an adjective. Often, the adverbs formed form a common root using each of these endings have slightly different meanings. So, καλός (/kalós/, meaning "good" or "correct") yields καλά (/kalá/, "well") and καλώς (/kalós/, "correctly"). Not all adjectives can be transformed into adverbs by using both endings. Γρήγορος (/ghríghoros/ "fast") becomes γρήγορα (/ghríghora/,"quickly"), but not normally *γρηγόρως. When the -ως ending is used to transform an adjective whose tonal accent is on the third syllable from the end, such as επίσημος (/epísimos/, "official"), the corresponding adjective is accented on the second syllable from the end. Compare επισήμως (/episímos/) and επίσημα (/epísima/), which both mean "officially".
- In Latvian, an adverb is formed from an adjective, by changing the masculine or feminine adjective endings -s and -a to -i. "Labs", meaning "good", becomes "labi" for "well". Latvian adverbs have a particular use in expressions meaning "to speak" or "to understand" a language. Rather than use the noun meaning "Latvian/English/Russian", the adverb formed form these words is used. "Es runāju latviski/angliski/krieviski" means "I speak Latvian/English/Russian", or very literally "I speak Latvianly/Englishly/Russianly". When a noun is required, the expression used means literally "language of the Latvians/English/Russians", "latviešu/angļu/krievu valoda".
[edit] References
- Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads -- a crosslinguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University press.
- Ernst, Thomas. 2002. The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Haegeman, Liliane. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. MIT Press,
