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John Earle wrote that a flat adverb was "simply a substantive or an adjective placed in the adverbial position." However, he found that flat adverbs are not suitable for many of the advanced uses that a modern adverb might be. [16] An example of a more advanced adverb would be the sentential naturally, as in naturally, we got along.
Certain words can be used as both adjectives and adverbs, such as fast, straight, and hard; these are flat adverbs. In earlier usage more flat adverbs were accepted in formal usage; many of these survive in idioms and colloquially. (That's just plain ugly.) Some adjectives can also be used as flat adverbs when they actually describe the subject.
An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a determiner, a clause, a preposition, or a sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, or level of certainty by answering questions such as how , in what way , when , where , to what extent .
William Bullokar wrote the earliest grammar of English, published in 1586.It includes a chapter on adverbs. His definition follows: An adverb is a part of speech joined with a verb or participle to declare their signification more expressly by such adverb: as, come hither if they wilt go forth, sometimes with an adjective: as, thus broad: & sometimes joined with another adverb: as, how soon ...
When the suffix is added to an adjective ending in a vowel letter followed by the letter l, it results in an adverb spelled with -lly, for example, the adverb centrally from the adjective central, but without a geminated l sound in pronunciation. Other examples are actually, historically, really, carefully, especially, and usually.
There are many attributive adjectives and adverbs in English that function to indicate a speaker's anger, irritation or (in some cases) strong approval without otherwise modifying the meaning of the phrase in which they occur. [1] An example is the word bloody as used in the following sentences:
In this case the word does not form a verb phrase; any modifiers it takes will be of a grammatical kind which is appropriate to a noun or adjective respectively. For example: Shouting loudly is rude. (shouting is a gerund, modified by the adverb loudly) Loud shouting is something I can't stand. (shouting is a pure noun, modified by the ...
These degree adverbs include clear, flat, plumb, right, smack, and straight. Examples of prepositional phrases modified in this way include clear up the tree, straight out the door, and right out of the park. [14]: 643–645 [18]: 191–200