What are Adverbs?
Adverbs are words that tell us more about verbs....they add information to the verb.Using adverbs makes your sentences more interesting.
Any verb you use can have an adverb added.
The girl smiled nervously.
The light shone feebly.
We use adverbs:
to say how something happens
'The family walks (how?) quickly.'
to say where or when something happens
'I met him (when?) yesterday.'
to say how often something happens
'She gets the bus (how often?) daily.'
to make the meaning of an adjective, adverb or verb stronger or weaker
'Dave eats (degree?) more slowly than his wife.'
Adverbs are often created from adjectives (describing words that tell you more about nouns) by adding 'ly' to the end of the adjective.
e.g. slow becomes slowly 'Joe is a slow person. He walks slowly.'
Certain words change when they become adverbs. If an adjective ends in a 'y' you need to change the 'y' to an 'i' before adding 'ly'.
Happy becomes happily
Position of adverbs
There are 3 places in the sentence where adverbs can come.
At the beginning of a sentence:
'Suddenly I had earache.'
In the middle of a sentence:
'I recently had earache.'
At the end of a sentence:
'I had earache recently.'
How do you know where the adverb goes?
Most kinds of adverbs can go in 'mid-position' (before the verb) in a sentence:
'I'm usually working at weekends.'
'I never said I liked you.'
Other adverbs may fit more comfortably at the beginning or end of a sentence:
'Yesterday I went to the skate park.'
'I went to the skate park yesterday.'
The best way to know if the order is right is to say the sentence to yourself. Does it sound right?
'She often is late.'
'She is often late.' This sounds better.
Spotting adverbs
Adverbs are quite complicated. You cannot tell by the look of a word that it is an adverb. You can recognize it as an adverb only by the work it does in a sentence. A word may be an adverb in one sentence and a different part of speech in another sentence.
The job went well. Here well describes the verb 'went', so it is an adverb.
The well was drained by morning. Here well names something, so it is a noun.
The well water tasted disgusting. Here well is being used to name a type of 'water', so it is not describing a verb. It is not an adverb here.
Adverbial phrases
Adverbial phrases are small strings of words that do the same job as single-word adverbs:
''I'll see him on Saturday.'
''The thief ran down the road.'
'The mobile phones rang all at once.'
Other places to find adverbs...
An adverb may also be used to describe another adverb or an adjective.
'The weekend passed very quickly.'
quickly describes the verb passed: quickly is an adverb.
very describes the adverb quickly: very is also an adverb.
'That seemed an extremely interesting plan.'
interesting describes the noun plan: interesting is an adjective.
extremely describes the adjective interesting: extremely is an adverb.
Adverbs can also qualify (describe) whole sentences:
'Hopefully the shoes will fit.'
'The dress, unfortunately, was ruined.'
Degrees of comparison
Adverbs are often used to make the meaning of a verb or other adverb stronger or weaker. This is known as 'degrees of comparison'.
What are they?
The positive degree is the simple form of the adverb: slowly, early.e.g.
'He walked slowly.'
The comparative degree is used to compare two actions: slower, more slowly, earlier.e.g.
'Sarah walked more slowly than Ben.'
The superlative comparison is used to compare three or more: slowest, earliest.e.g.
'We all take our time, but I walk the slowest of all.'
ERICKA COJOMA
A06F
