An adverb is a part of speech that changes the meaning of verbs or any part of speech other than nouns (modifiers of nouns are primarily adjectives and determiners). Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences, and other adverbs.

Adverbs typically answer questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?. This function is called the adverbial function, and is realized not just by single words (i.e., adverbs) but by adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.

Adverbs in English[link]

Adverbs are words like yesterday, now, soon, and suddenly. An adverb usually modifies a verb or a verb phrase. It provides information about the manner, place, time, frequency, certainty, or other circumstances of the activity denoted by the verb or verb phrase.

• She walked slowly. (Here the adverb slowly shows the manner in which she walked.)
• The kids are playing together. (Here the adverb together provides information about how the kids are playing.)

Adverbs can also modify adjectives and other adverbs.

• You are quite right. (Here the adverb quite modifies the adjective right.)
• She spoke quite loudly. (Here the adverb quite modifies another adverb – loudly.)

In English, adverbs of manner (answering the question how?) are often formed by adding -ly to adjectives. For example, great yields greatly, and beautiful yields beautifully. There are also adverbs that do not end with -ly, such as hard in "Asiya worked hard to help her family", or well in "My sister performed well in the examination." Note that some words that end in -ly, such as friendly and lovely, are not adverbs, but adjectives, in which case the root word is usually a noun. There are also underived adjectives that end in -ly, such as holy and silly.

The suffix -ly is related to the German word Leiche, which means "corpse". (There is also an obsolete English word lych or lich with the same meaning.) Both words are also related to the word like. The connection between -ly and like is easy to understand. The connection to lich is probably that both are descended from an earlier word that meant something like "shape" or "form".^[1] The use of like in the place of -ly as an adverb ending is seen in Appalachian English, from the hardening of the ch in "lich" into a k, originating in northern British speech.

In this way, -ly in English is cognate with the common German adjective ending -lich, the Dutch ending -lijk, the Dano-Norwegian -lig and Norwegian -leg. This same process is followed in Romance languages with the ending -mente, -ment, or -mense meaning "of/like the mind".

In some cases, the suffix -wise may be used to derive adverbs from 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. Some adverbs are formed from nouns or adjectives by prepending the prefix a- (such as abreast, astray). There are 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.

Comparative adverbs include more, most, least, and less (in phrases such as more beautiful, most easily etc.).

The usual form pertaining to adjectives or adverbs is called the positive. Formally, adverbs in English are inflected in terms of comparison, just like adjectives. The comparative and superlative forms of some (especially single-syllable) adverbs that do not end in -ly are generated by adding -er and -est (She ran faster; He jumps highest). Others, especially those ending -ly, are periphrastically compared by the use of more or most (She ran more quickly), while some accept both forms, e.g. oftener and more often are both correct. Adverbs also take comparisons with as ... as, less, and least. Equative adverbs are used to describe the similarities between two objects or people; for example:

• Tom runs as fast as Gary. (Both Tom and Gary run at the same speed.)
• The students are working as hard as ants. (The students are compared to hard-working ants.)

Not all adverbs are comparable; for example in the sentence He wore red yesterday it does not make sense to speak of "more yesterday" or "most yesterday".

Adverbs as a "catch-all" category[link]

Adverbs are considered a part of speech in traditional English grammar and are still included as a part of speech in grammar taught in schools and used in dictionaries. However, modern grammarians recognize that words traditionally grouped together as adverbs serve a number of different functions. Some would go so far as to call adverbs a "catch-all" category that includes all words that do not belong to one of the other parts of speech.

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, "The hat is red".)

When this approach is taken, it is seen that adverbs fall into a number of different categories. For example, some adverbs can be used to modify an entire sentence, whereas others cannot. 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. Naturally as a sentential adverb means something like "of course" and as a verb-modifying adverb means "in a natural manner". This "naturally" distinction 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 isn't.

Words like very and particularly afford another useful example. We can say Perry is very fast, but not Perry 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 sock looks good there but not It is a there beautiful sock. 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. Huddleston distinguishes between a word and a lexicogrammatical-word.^[2]

Not is an interesting case. Grammarians have a difficult time categorizing it, and it probably belongs in its own class^[3][4]

Other languages[link]

Other languages may form adverbs in different ways, if they are used at all: adverb of manners and adverb of place.

• In Dutch 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 German the term Adverb is differently defined than in the English language. German adverbs form a group of not inflectable words (except for comparison in which in rare cases some are inflected like adjectives, too). An English adverb, which is derived from an adjective, is arranged in the German language under the adjectives with adverbial use in the sentence. The others are also called adverbs in the German language.
• In Scandinavian languages, adverbs are typically derived from adjectives by adding the suffix '-t', which makes it identical to the adjective's neuter form. Scandinavian adjectives, like English ones, are inflected in terms of comparison by adding '-ere'/'-are' (comparative) or '-est'/'-ast' (superlative). In inflected forms of adjectives the '-t' is absent. Periphrastic comparison is also possible.
• In Romance languages many adverbs are formed from adjectives (often the feminine form) by adding '-mente' (Portuguese, Spanish, Galician, Italian) or '-ment' (French, Catalan) (from Latin mens, mentis: mind, intelligence). Other adverbs are single forms which are invariable.
• In the Romanian language, the vast majority of adverbs are simply the masculine singular form of the corresponding adjective – one notable exception being bine ("well") / bun ("good"). However, there are some Romanian adverbs that are built from certain masculine singular nouns using the suffix "-eşte", such as the following ones: băieţ-eşte (boyishly), tiner-eşte (youthfully), bărbăt-eşte (manly), frăţ-eşte (brotherly), etc.
• Interlingua also forms adverbs by adding '-mente' to the adjective. If an adjective ends in c, the adverbial ending is '-amente'. A few short, invariable adverbs, such as ben, "well", and mal, "badly", are available and widely used.
• 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'. See also: special Esperanto adverbs.
• In Hungarian adverbs are formed from adjectives of any degree through the suffixes -ul/ül and -an/en depending on the adjective. E.g. szép (beautiful) -> szépen (beautifully) or the comparative szebb (more beautiful) -> szebben (more beautifully)
• Modern Standard Arabic forms adverbs by adding the indefinite accusative ending '-an' to the root. For example, kathiir-, "many", becomes kathiiran "much". However, Arabic often avoids adverbs by using a cognate accusative plus an adjective.
• Austronesian languages appear to form comparative adverbs by repeating the root (as in WikiWiki), similarly to the plural noun.
• Japanese forms adverbs from verbal adjectives by adding /ku/ (く) to the stem (e.g. haya- "rapid" hayai "quick/early", hayakatta "was quick", hayaku "quickly") and from nominal adjectives by placing /ni/ (に) after the adjective instead of the copula /na/ (な) or /no/ (の) (e.g. rippa "splendid", rippa ni "splendidly"). These derivations are quite productive but there are a few adjectives from which adverbs may not be derived.
• In Gaelic, an adverbial form is made by preceding the adjective with the preposition go (Irish) or gu (Scottish Gaelic), meaning 'until'.
• In Modern Greek, an adverb is most commonly made by adding the endings <-α> and/or <-ως> to the root of an adjective. Often, the adverbs formed from a common root using each of these endings have slightly different meanings. So, <τέλειος> (<téleios>, meaning "perfect" and "complete") yields <τέλεια> (<téleia>, "perfectly") and <τελείως> (<teleíos>, "completely"). Not all adjectives can be transformed into adverbs by using both endings. <Γρήγορος> (<grígoros>, "rapid") becomes <γρήγορα> (<grígora>, "rapidly"), but not normally *<γρηγόρως> (*<grigóros>). When the <-ως> ending is used to transform an adjective whose tonal accent is on the third syllable from the end, such as <επίσημος> (<epísimos>, "official"), the corresponding adjective is accented on the second syllable from the end; compare <επίσημα> (<epísima>) and <επισήμως> (<episímos>), which both mean "officially". There are also other endings with particular and restricted use as <-ί>, <-εί>, <-ιστί>, etc. For example, <ατιμωρητί> (<atimorití>, "with impunity") and <ασυζητητί> (<asyzitití>, "indisputably"); <αυτολεξεί> (<autolexeí> "word for word") and <αυτοστιγμεί> (<autostigmeí>, "in no time"); <αγγλιστί> [<anglistí> "in English (language)"] and <παπαγαλιστί> (<papagalistí>, "by rote"); etc.
• In Latvian, an adverb is formed from an adjective, by changing the masculine or feminine adjective endings -s and -a to -i. "Labs", meaning "good", becomes "labi" for "well". Latvian adverbs have a particular use in expressions meaning "to speak" or "to understand" a language. Rather than use the noun meaning "Latvian/English/Russian", the adverb formed form these words is used. "Es runāju latviski/angliski/krieviski" means "I speak Latvian/English/Russian", or very literally "I speak Latvianly/Englishly/Russianly". When a noun is required, the expression used means literally "language of the Latvians/English/Russians", "latviešu/angļu/krievu valoda".
• In Ukrainian an adverb is formed by removing the adjectival suffices "-ий" "-а" or "-е" from an adjective, and replacing them with the adverbial "-о". For example, "швидкий", "гарна", and "смачне" (fast, nice, tasty) become "швидко", "гарно", and "смачно" (quickly, nicely, tastefully). As well, note that adverbs are mostly placed before the verbs they modify: "Добрий син гарно співає." (A good son sings nicely/well). Although, there is no specific word order in East Slavic languages.
• In Korean, adverbs are formed by replacing 다 of the dictionary form of a verb with 게. So, 쉽다 (easy) becomes 쉽게 (easily).
• In Turkish, the same word usually serves as adjective and adverb: iyi bir kız ("a good girl"), iyi anlamak ("to understand well).
• In Chinese, adverbs end in the word "地（的）", the English equivalent of "-ly".

See also[link]

• Grammatical conjunction
• Prepositional adverb
• Pronominal adverb

References[link]

1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary Online; entry on lich, etymology section.
2. ^ Huddleston, Rodney (1988). English grammar: an outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 7. DOI:10.2277/0521311527. ISBN 0-521-32311-8. 
3. ^ Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads—a cross linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University press.
4. ^ Haegeman, Liliane. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Ernst, Thomas. 2002. The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. MIT Press,

External links[link]

Look up adverb in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Online Dictionary of Language Terminology