2. Adverbs
Adverbs
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An adverb is a word or an expression that modifies a verb, adjective, another
adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically
express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc.,
answering questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to
what extent?. This is called the adverbial function, and may be performed by
single words (adverbs) or by multi-word adverbial phrases and adverbial
clauses.
Adverbs are traditionally regarded as one of the parts of speech. Modern
linguists note that the term "adverb" has come to be used as a kind of "catch-
all" category, used to classify words with various types of syntactic behavior,
not necessarily having much in common except that they do not fit into any of
the other available categories (noun, adjective, preposition, etc.)
3. Adverbs
Adverbs
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In traditional grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as
POS or PoS) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that
have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assigned to the same
part of speech generally display similar syntactic behavior—they play similar
roles within the grammatical structure of sentences—and sometimes similar
morphology in that they undergo inflection for similar properties.
Commonly listed English parts of speech are noun, verb, adjective, adverb,
pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, numeral, article, or
determiner. Other Indo-European languages also have essentially all these
word classes; one exception to this generalization is that Latin, Sanskrit and
most Slavic languages do not have articles. Beyond the Indo-European
family, such other European languages as Hungarian and Finnish, both of
which belong to the Uralic family, completely lack prepositions or have only
very few of them; rather, they have postpositions.
4. Adverbs
Adverbs
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The English word adverb derives (through French) from Latin adverbium,
from ad- ("to"), verbum ("word", "verb"), and the nominal suffix -ium. The term
implies that the principal function of adverbs is to act as modifiers of verbs or
verb phrases. An adverb used in this way may provide information about the
manner, place, time, frequency, certainty, or other circumstances of the
activity denoted by the verb or verb phrase.
5. Adverbs
Adverbs
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Some examples:
She sang loudly (loudly modifies the verb sang, indicating the manner of
singing)
We left it here (here modifies the verb phrase left it, indicating place)
I worked yesterday (yesterday modifies the verb worked, indicating time)
You often make mistakes (often modifies the verb phrase make mistakes,
indicating frequency)
He undoubtedly did it (undoubtedly modifies the verb phrase did it, indicating
certainty)
6. Adverbs
Adverbs
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Adverbs can also be used as modifiers of adjectives, and of other adverbs,
often to indicate degree. Examples:
You are quite right (the adverb quite modifies the adjective right)
She sang very loudly (the adverb very modifies another adverb – loudly)
7. Adverbs
Adverbs
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They can also modify determiners, prepositional phrases, or whole clauses or
sentences, as in the following examples:
I bought practically the only fruit (practically modifies the determiner the in the
noun phrase, "the only fruit" wherein "only" is an adjective)
She drove us almost to the station (almost modifies the prepositional phrase
to the station)
Certainly we need to act (certainly modifies the sentence as a whole)
8. Adverbs
Adverbs
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Adverbs thus perform a wide range of modifying functions. The major
exception is the function of modifier of nouns, which is performed instead by
adjectives (compare she sang loudly with her loud singing disturbed me; here
the verb sang is modified by the adverb loudly, whereas the noun singing is
modified by the adjective loud). However, because some adverbs and
adjectives are homonyms, their respective functions are sometimes
conflated:
Even numbers are divisible by two
The camel even drank.
9. Adverbs
Adverbs
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Although it is possible for an adverb to precede or to follow a noun or a noun
phrase, the adverb nonetheless does not modify either in such cases, as in:
Internationally there is a shortage of protein for animal feeds
There is a shortage internationally of protein for animal feeds
There is an international shortage of protein for animal feeds
In the first sentence, "Internationally" is a prepositive adverb that modifies the
clause, "there is ..." In the second sentence, "internationally" is a postpositive
adverb that modifies the clause, "There is ..." By contrast, the third sentence
contains "international" as a prepositive adjective that modifies the noun,
"shortage."
10. Adverbs
Adverbs
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Adverbs can sometimes be used as predicative expressions; in English, this
applies especially to adverbs of location:
Your seat is there.
Here is my boarding pass (wherein "boarding pass" is the subject and "here"
is the predicate in a syntax that entails a subject-verb inversion).
When the function of an adverb is performed by an expression consisting of
more than one word, it is called an adverbial phrase or adverbial clause, or
simply an adverbial.
11. Formation and Comparison
Formation and Comparison
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In English, adverbs of manner (answering the question how?) are often
formed by adding -ly to adjectives, but flat adverbs (such as in drive fast,
drive slow, and drive friendly) have the same form as the corresponding
adjective.
Other languages often have similar methods for deriving adverbs from
adjectives (French, for example, uses the suffix -ment), or else use the same
form for both adjectives and adverbs, as in German and Dutch, where for
example schnell or snel, respectively, mean either "quick" or "quickly"
depending on the context. Many other adverbs, however, are not related to
adjectives in this way; they may be derived from other words or phrases, or
may be single morphemes. Examples of such adverbs in English include
here, there, together, yesterday, aboard, very, almost, etc.
12. Adverbial Phrase
Adverbial Phrase
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In linguistics, an adverbial phrase ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression
operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions,
including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Adverbial
phrases can be divided into two types: complement adverbs and modifier
adverbs.
For example, in the sentence She sang very well, the expression very well is
an adverbial phrase, as it modifies the verb to sing. More specifically, the
adverbial phrases very well contains two adverbs, very and well: while well
modifies the verb to convey information about the manner of singing (for
example, She sang well versus She sang badly), very is a degree modifier
that conveys information about the degree to which the action of singing well
was accomplished (for example, Not only did she sing well, she sang very
well).
13. Adverbial Phrase
Adverbial Phrase
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The major classes of adverbials are adjunct, disjunct, subjunct and conjunct.
Adjunct:
referring to information of the action or state in the clause or aspects of things
within the real world.
Conjunct:
contextualizes relationships between text. Provides a connective function.
(i.e. furthermore, to begin with, however)
Disjunct:
conveys speakers evaluation of something
( i.e. probably, fortunately)
Subjunct:
has a subordinate role relative to other clauses in the structure.
often referring to viewpoint, focus, or degree adverbials
15. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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Adverbs of degree tell us more about the intensity of the verb in the
sentence, in other words, they describe how much, or to what degree. They
can be categorized as low degree (e.g. somewhat), medium degree (e.g.
fairly), and high degree (e.g. extremely). Adverbs of degree can also modify
adjectives and other adverbs and are placed before the word they modify.
Popular adverbs of degree include:
almost
enough
hardly
just
nearly
quite
simply
so
too
16. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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Adverbs of frequency let us know how often the verb occurs. Therefore
they mostly modify verbs. These adverbs tend to appear right before the
main verb in the sentence. Popular adverbs in this category include:
again
always
never
normally
rarely
seldom
sometimes
Usually
annually
daily
monthly
recently
weekly
yearly
17. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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Adverbs of time detail when the verb took place. We usually see these
kinds of adverbs placed at the beginning or end of a sentence.
He came yesterday. (When did he come?)
I want it now. (When do I want it?)
18. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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Adverbs of manner tell us how, or in what manner, something was carried
out. They mostly modify verbs and can often be found at the end of a clause.
This category comprises the most common adverbs — the ones that end in -
ly. Here are some examples of adverbs of manner:
beautifully
generously
happily
neatly
patiently
softly
quickly
well
19. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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Adverbs of place tell us more about where the verb took place. These tend
to pop up after the main verb or direct object of the sentence. Here are some
common adverbs of place:
above
below
everywhere
here
in
inside
into
nowhere
out
outside
there
20. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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A sentence adverb starts the sentence and modifies the whole sentence.
Example:
Hopefully, we will win the match.
Apparently, the sky is getting cloudy.
Certainly, I did not think of coming here.
21. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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full complete reasonable particular
poor heavy thorough close
cyclic double partial immediate
1. They investigated the causes of the failure very
……………………………………. .
2. I ………………………….. accept responsibility for this decision.
3. Many changes in the economy happen …………………………….. .
4. Be ………………………….. careful when driving in Italy.
5. I can´t accept your arguments; they are only ………………………. true.
6. Dr White´s lectures are ……………………………… popular with the
students, because he always
gives many examples of practical applications.
7. His paper was rejected because it was very………………. written.
8. Our equipment is still in …………………………… good condition.
9. The damage was not ……………………………….. apparent.
10. Some of the EU countries are ……………………………….. indebted.
11. He is ………….. involved in the work of the quality assurance committee.
12. I ……………………………… forgot where we were to meet.
22. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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Correct the following mistakes.
1. He was late as usually.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………….
2. That system is widespread used.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………….
3. In further, advantages of the new system will be discussed.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………….
4. Our objectives are not full compatible with theirs.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………….
5. After sometimes the pressure decreases.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………..
6. These are common used tests.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………..
23. Kinds of Adverbs
Kinds of Adverbs
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7. At the last we agreed on what method to use.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………..
8. The hypothesis was presented as soon as 1987.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………..
9. Think hardly, you may find a solution.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………..
10. Such things some time happen.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………
11. Let´s examine the issue more in deep.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
……
