Adverbs
An adverb is a word that tells us more about
a verb. An adverb "qualifies" or "modifies" a verb
(The man ran quickly). But adverbs can
also modify adjectives (Tara is really
beautiful), or even other adverbs (It
works very well).
Many different kinds of word are called
adverbs. We can usually recognise an adverb by its:
- Function (Job)
- Form
- Position
1. Function
The principal job of an adverb is
to modify (give more information about) verbs, adjectives
and other adverbs. In the following examples, the adverb
is in bold and the word that it modifies is in
italics.
- Modify a verb:
- John speaks loudly. (How does John
speak?)
- Mary lives locally. (Where does
Mary live?)
- She never smokes. (When does she
smoke?)
- Modify an adjective:
- He is really handsome.
- Modify another adverb:
- She drives incredibly slowly.
But adverbs have other functions,
too. They can:
- Modify a whole sentence:
- Obviously, I can't know everything.
- Modify a prepositional phrase:
- It's immediately inside the door.
2. Form
Many adverbs end in -ly. We form such
adverbs by adding -ly to the adjective. Here are some
examples:
- quickly, softly, strongly, honestly,
interestingly
But not all words that end in -ly
are adverbs. "Friendly", for example, is an adjective.
Some adverbs have no particular form,
for example:
- well, fast, very, never, always,
often, still
3. Position
Adverbs have three main positions
in the sentence:
- Front (before the subject):
- Now we will study adverbs.
- Middle (between the subject and
the main verb):
- We often study adverbs.
- End (after the verb or object):
- We study adverbs carefully.
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