What is an Adverb?

An adverb can modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a phrase, or a clause. 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. In the following examples, each of the highlighted words is an adverb: The seamstress quickly made the mourning clothes. In this sentence, the adverb "quickly" modifies the verb "made" and indicates in what manner (or how fast) the clothing was constructed. The midwives waited patiently through a long labour. Similarly in this sentence, the adverb "patiently" modifies the verb "waited" and describes the manner in which the midwives waited. The boldly spoken words would return to haunt the rebel. In this sentence the adverb "boldly" modifies the adjective "spoken." We urged him to dial the number more expeditiously. Here the adverb "more" modifies the adverb "expeditiously." Unfortunately, the bank closed at three today. In this example, the adverb "unfortunately" modifies the entire sentence.

Conjunctive Adverbs
You can use a conjunctive adverb to join two clauses together. Some of the most common conjunctive adverbs are "also," "consequently," "finally," "furthermore," "hence," "however," "incidentally," "indeed," "instead," "likewise," "meanwhile," "nevertheless," "next," "nonetheless," "otherwise," "still," "then," "therefore," and "thus." A conjunctive adverb is not strong enough to join two independent clauses without the aid of a semicolon. The highlighted words in the following sentences are conjunctive adverbs:

The government has cut university budgets; consequently, class sizes have been increased. He did not have all the ingredients the recipe called for; therefore, he decided to make something else. The report recommended several changes to the ways the corporation accounted for donations; furthermore, it suggested that a new auditor be appointed immediately. The crowd waited patiently for three hours; finally, the doors to the stadium were opened. Batman and Robin fruitlessly searched the building; indeed, the Joker had escaped through a secret door in the basement. Written by Heather MacFadyen The adverb belongs to a large class of words that add information by qualifying or modifying a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a preposition, or a clausebasically anything except nouns and pronouns (which are modified by adjectives). Adverbs can behave quite differently from one another and yet still be classified as adverbs. Confused? Don't be! Let our English editing experts explain this mystifying modifier.

Adverbs in action
The following are examples of how adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, prepositions, and entire clauses: He walked (verb) aimlessly (adverb). That sounded like an extremely (adverb) interesting (adjective) plan. The cyclist pedaled very (adverb) swiftly (adverb). The parrots flew right (adverb) over (preposition) the house. Apparently (adverb), they had already left for Berlin (clause).

Understanding different types of adverbs

A useful way of summing up these hard-working words is to say that they are used to describe one of the following instances of an event or action: 1. How an event occurs (also known as adverbs of manner) He ate his pear noisily (adverb). 2. When an event occurs (also known as adverbs of time)

He left the town yesterday (adverb). We'll meet again (adverb). 3. Where an event occurs (also known as adverbs of place) I left the book here (adverb). Outside (adverb), the rain poured down. 4. How often an action or event occurs She takes the train daily (adverb). 5. The degree or extent of an action (also known as degree adverbs) How (adverb) tall is she? She discovered that the plant was highly (adverb) toxic. 6. To strengthen or weaken the meaning of an adjective, adverb, or verb Lucy speaks more loudly (adverb) than her brother.

How to spot adverbs

It is impossible to tell by the appearance of a word that it is an adverb. Indeed, the same word may be an adverb in one sentence and a different part of speech, such as a noun or adjective, in another sentence. The only way writers can recognize an adverb is by the work the adverb does in a sentence. Compare the following: The trip went well. The old well was full by morning. In the first sentence, the adverb "well" describes the verb "went," and therefore is an adverb (of manner). In the second sentence, the word "well" names something, and thus is a noun. Similarly, in the sentence, I'll catch the early train, "early" describes the noun, "train," and is an adjective. In the sentence, I awoke early this morning,

"early" tells us more about the verb "awoke," and is an adverb of time. Some adverbs have the same form as adjectives. As we have seen in the example above, "early" works in a sentence as an adjective (used to describe nouns, including people, places, and things) or an adverb. The words "hard," "fast," "late," and "long" are other examples.

Placement is important
To make your meaning clear, an adverb should usually be placed as close as possible to the word the adverb is intended to describe or modify. Compare the meaning in these two sentences: We nearly lost all our research material. We lost nearly all our research material. The first sentence means that the material was saved, but the second says that almost everything was lost.

A trick for recognizing adverbs of manner

In English, adverbs of manner are often created from adjectives by adding the suffix "ly" to the end; for example, "soft" becomes "softly" and "gradual" becomes "gradually." The placement of "ly" on the end of a word can be a good clue that the word is an adverb. On the other hand, remember that adjectives naturally ending in "le" or "ly" do not form attractive adverbs, for example, "silly" as "sillily." These and other words ending in "ly," such as "friendly" (adjective) or "lonely" (adjective), are never used as adverbs.

Spot a degree adverb easily

Like adjectives, many adverbs can be graded; that is, we can modify them using very or extremely: softly: very softly suddenly: very suddenly slowly: extremely slowly The modifying words "very" and "extremely" are themselves adverbs that, as we have seen, are called degree adverbs since they specify the degree to which an adjective or another adverb applies. Other examples are "almost," "barely," "entirely," "highly," "quite," "slightly," and "totally."

An adverb ending in "ly" does not need a hyphen to indicate that the adverb is modifying the adjective or participle next to the adverb. When adverbs that do not end in "ly" are used as compound words in front of a noun, they should be hyphenated, but if they follow the noun, do not hyphenate: A carefully prepared breakfast. She bought a pair of much-needed shoes. Her new shoes were much needed. Understanding and identifying adverbs is easywhen you know what you're looking for. If you're worried that adverbs are running amuck in your assignment, now's the time to contact Scribendi.com's English editing and proofreading services. A professional assessment is just a click away. Published: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:14:39 GMT Tags: adverbs, grammar, resources, verbs Related Articles: Adjectives or Adverbs?, All About Adjectives, All About Pronouns Permalink Back to Advice and Articles