English Grammar Adverb

Definition

Adverbs are words that modify

• a verb (He drove slowly. — How did he drive?)
• an adjective (He drove a very fast car. — How fast was his car?)
• another adverb (She moved quite slowly down the aisle. — How slowly did she move?)

As we will see, adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under what conditions something happens or happened. Adverbs frequently end in -ly; however, many words and phrases not ending in -ly serve an adverbial function and an -ly ending is not a guarantee that a word is an adverb. The words lovely, lonely, motherly, friendly, neighborly, for instance, are adjectives:

• That lovely woman lives in a friendly neighborhood.

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb (modifying the verb of a sentence), it is called an Adverb Clause:

• When this class is over, we're going to the movies.

When a group of words not containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb, it is called an adverbial phrase. Prepositional phrases frequently have adverbial functions (telling place and time, modifying the verb):

• He went to the movies.
• She works on holidays.
• They lived in Canada during the war.

And Infinitive phrases can act as adverbs (usually telling why):

• She hurried to the mainland to see her brother.
• The senator ran to catch the bus.

But there are other kinds of adverbial phrases:

• He calls his mother as often as possible.

Adverbs can modify adjectives, but an adjective cannot modify an adverb. Thus we would say that "the students showed a really wonderful attitude" and that "the students showed a wonderfully casual attitude" and that "my professor is really tall, but not "He ran real fast."

Like adjectives, adverbs can have comparative and superlative forms to show degree.

• Walk faster if you want to keep up with me.
• The student who reads fastest will finish first.

We often use more and most, less and least to show degree with adverbs:

• With sneakers on, she could move more quickly among the patients.
• The flowers were the most beautifully arranged creations I've ever seen.
• She worked less confidently after her accident.
• That was the least skillfully done performance I've seen in years.

The as — as construction can be used to create adverbs that express sameness or equality: "He can't run as fast as his sister."

A handful of adverbs have two forms, one that ends in -ly and one that doesn't. In certain cases, the two forms have different meanings:

• He arrived late.
• Lately, he couldn't seem to be on time for anything.

In most cases, however, the form without the -ly ending should be reserved for casual situations:

• She certainly drives slow in that old Buick of hers.
• He did wrong by her.
• He spoke sharp, quick, and to the point.

Adverbs often function as intensifiers, conveying a greater or lesser emphasis to something. Intensifiers are said to have three different functions: they can emphasize, amplify, or downtone. Here are some examples:

• Emphasizers:
  • I really don't believe him.
  • He literally wrecked his mother's car.
  • She simply ignored me.
  • They're going to be late, for sure.
• Amplifiers:
  • The teacher completely rejected her proposal.
  • I absolutely refuse to attend any more faculty meetings.
  • They heartily endorsed the new restaurant.
  • I so wanted to go with them.
  • We know this city well.
• Downtoners:
  • I kind of like this college.
  • Joe sort of felt betrayed by his sister.
  • His mother mildly disapproved his actions.
  • We can improve on this to some extent.
  • The boss almost quit after that.
  • The school was all but ruined by the storm.

Adverbs (as well as adjectives) in their various degrees can be accompanied by premodifiers:

• She runs very fast.
• We're going to run out of material all the faster

ADVERBS: How adverbs are formed

Rules

1. In most cases, an adverb is formed by adding '-ly' to an adjective:

Adjective	Adverb
cheap quick slow	cheaply quickly slowly

Examples

• Time goes quickly.
• He walked slowly to the door.
• She certainly had an interesting life.
• He carefully picked up the sleeping child.

Rules

If the adjective ends in '-y', replace the 'y' with 'i' and add '-ly':

Adjective	Adverb
easy angry happy lucky	easily angrily happily luckily

If the adjective ends in -'able', '-ible', or '-le', replace the '-e' with '-y':

Adjective	Adverb
probable terrible gentle	probably terribly gently

If the adjective ends in '-ic', add '-ally':

Adjective	Adverb
basic economic tragic	basically economically tragically

Note: Exception: public - publicly

2. Some adverbs have the same form as the adjective:

Adjective and Adverb
early fast hard high	late near straight wrong

Compare:

• It is a fast car.
• He drives very fast.
• This is a hard exercise.
• He works hard.
• We saw many high buildings.
• The bird flew high in the sky.

3. 'Well' and 'good'

'Well' is the adverb that corresponds to the adjective 'good'.

Examples

• He is a good student.
• He studies well.
• She is a good pianist.
• She plays the piano well.
• They are good swimmers.
• They swim well.

Use of adverbs

to modify verbs:
The soccer team played badly last Saturday.

to modify adjectives:
It was an extremely bad match.

to modify adverbs:
The soccer team played extremely badly last Wednesday.

to modify quantities:
There are quite a lot of people here.

to modify sentences:
Unfortunately, the flight to Dallas had been cancelled.

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Types of adverbs

1) Adverbs of manner 
quickly
kindly

2) Adverbs of degree
very
rather

3) Adverbs of frequency
often
sometimes

4) Adverbs of time 
now
today

5) Adverbs of place 
here
nowhere

Order of Adverbs

There is a basic order in which adverbs will appear when there is more than one. It is similar to The Royal Order of Adjectives, but it is even more flexible.

THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADVERBS
Verb	Manner	Place	Frequency	Time	Purpose
Beth swims	enthusiastically	in the pool	every morning	before dawn	to keep in shape.
Dad walks	impatiently	into town	every afternoon	before supper	to get a newspaper.
Tashonda naps		in her room	every morning	before lunch.
	In actual practice, of course, it would be highly unusual to have a string of adverbial modifiers beyond two or three (at the most). Because the placement of adverbs is so flexible, one or two of the modifiers would probably move to the beginning of the sentence: "Every afternoon before supper, Dad impatiently walks into town to get a newspaper." When that happens, the introductory adverbial modifiers are usually set off with a comma.

Some Special Cases

The adverbs enough and not enough usually take a postmodifier position:

• Is that music loud enough?
• These shoes are not big enough.
• In a roomful of elderly people, you must remember to speak loudly enough.

(Notice, though, that when enough functions as an adjective, it can come before the noun:

• Did she give us enough time?

The adverb enough is often followed by an infinitive:

• She didn't run fast enough to win.

The adverb too comes before adjectives and other adverbs:

• She ran too fast.
• She works too quickly.

If too comes after the adverb it is probably a disjunct (meaning also) and is usually set off with a comma:

• Yasmin works hard. She works quickly, too.

The adverb too is often followed by an infinitive:

• She runs too slowly to enter this race.

Another common construction with the adverb too is too followed by a prepositional phrase — for + the object of the preposition — followed by an infinitive:

• This milk is too hot for a baby to drink.