Adverb

An adverb is a Part of speech that usually serves to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, clauses, and sentences. Adverbs typically answer such questions as how?, when?, where?, in what way?, or how often? This function is called the Adverbial function, and though typically taken up by adverbs, adverbials may also be realized by other forms, such as adverbial phrases or an adverbial clauses or other types of phrases or words that are not members of the adverb class.

In English, adverbs 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 typically 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 is 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.

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.

Non-English Adverbs

• In 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.
• Romance languages form adverbs by adding -mente (Spanish, etc) or -ment (French).
• 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.

Examples of adverbs in adverbial functions

The following examples illustrate adverbs in adverbial functions in English.

as a verb-modifier

• It is tiring to run quickly.
• My sister laughs loudly.
• The sun shone brightly.
• The captain went boldly.
• The farmer worked hard. (NB: Not hardly)
• The minister spoke well. (NB: Not goodly)

as an adjective-modifier

• His poetry is very beautiful.
• The meaning of this passage is abundantly clear.
• That sign is hardly visible.

as an adverb-modifier

• I know that he can write more clearly.
• The sun came out quite suddenly.
• This species is the slightly slower growing one.

adverb modifies a whole sentence

• Finally, she went home.
• Suddenly, the cat came in.
• Today, we can go on a day trip.

adverbial

Four groups of adverbs

1. Adverbs of manner (adverbs that tell how) Examples: happily, quickly, slowly, badly

2. Adverbs of time (adverbs that tell when) Examples: then, now, soon

3. Adverbs of place (adverbs that tell where) Examples: there, here, nowhere

4. Adverbs of degree (adverbs that tell to what extent) Examples: more, very, barely, vaguely

English does not make any grammatical distinction between these four groups of adverbs, but some languages do. For example, in German, if a sentence contains multiple adverbs, they should appear in a particular order: time, manner, place.

Adverbs as a "catch all" category

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.

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 (described below) 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.