Adverbs




What are adverbs?
Adverbs are words which further describe a verb, an adjective or another adverb.

Examples:

1. Adverbs (in bold) describing verbs (underlined):

- And they all lived happily ever after. ( How did they live? Happily.)
- He looked down at her. (Where did he look? Down.)
- I soon realized the mistake. (When did I realize the mistake? Soon.)
- She always arrives at 7.30.  (How often does she arrive at 7.30? Always.)
- At the time, I hardly spoke any French. (To what extent did you speak French ? I hardly spoke any.)

2. Adverbs (in bold) describing adjectives (underlined):
- She was startingly beautiful. (How beautiful was she? To what extent? Startingly.)
- I am very happy for you. (How happy are you for me? To what extent? Very.)
- The hotel is beautifully situated in a quiet spot near the river. (How is it situated? Beautifully.)

3. Adverbs (in bold) describing another adverb (underlined):
- Don't drive so fast! (How fast? To what degree? )
- He replied to my letter very quickly. (How quickly? To what degree?)

What kinds of adverbs there are?
All of the above used adverbs can be classified into several groups:

a) Adverbs of manner - they describe in what manner something was done and give an answer to how?  ("happily" & "beautifully" in the above sentences; other examples: bravely, magically, fast, hard, well, quickly, slowly etc. )

b) Adverbs of place - they denote the place of the action and answer to where? ("down" in the above sentence; other examples: by, here, there, near, away, abroad, upstairs etc.)

c) Adverbs of time - they denote the time of the action and answer to when? ("soon" in the above sentence; other examples: now, today, yesterday, still, yet etc.)

d) Adverbs of frequency - they describe the frequency at which something happens and answer to how often? ("always"in the above sentence; other examples: occasionally, often, never, sometimes, twice etc.)

e) Adverbs of degree - they describe the degree to which something is done ("hardly", "startingly", "very" & "so" in the above sentences; other examples: fairly, rather, quite, too etc.)

Apart from these there are three more kinds of adverbs which have somewhat different roles in sentences:

f) Sentence adverbs:
- Certainly, the early years are crucial to a child's development.
-  Quite frankly, I'm not surprised you succeeded.
- They have presumably sold their house.
- He knew the town well apparently.
- I didn't tell anyone, honestly!

As you can see from the above examples, these adverbs modify the whole sentence (or clause) and express the speaker's opinion. To be more precise, they often convey the degree of certainty with which the speaker states something (certainly, actually, apparently, clearly, evidently, obviously, presumably, surely, perhaps etc.) or the speaker's attitude (frankly, honestly, luckily, unfortunately).

g) Interrogative adverbs - why, when, where, how

- Why was he late? (for what reason?)
- When do you get up? (at what time?)
- Where do you live? (in what place?)
- How did you come? ( in what way?)

* How can also be used with adjectives (How tall is she?), much and many (How much does it cost?/How many people were there?) and with adverbs (How fast can it go?).

h) Relative adverbs - when, where, why

- the year when he was born (when = in which)
- the day when they arrived (when = on which)
- the hotel where they were staying (where = at which/in which)
- the reason why he refused (why = for which)

To explain what adverbs are and what kinds of them exist I have used examples from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, from Thomson & Martinet's grammar textbook and from the Internet as well. In my future posts I will continue to write about adverbs - their usual positions in the sentence, about each kind of them separately, about distinguishing between an adverb and an adjective, or sometimes even an adverb and a preposition or a noun, etc.

Please feel free to ask me about anything that you didn't understand in my post or to draw my attention to possible mistakes I have made. Also any additional elaboration closely related to the topic of the post is very welcome.

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