Adverb

An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, noun phrase, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to what extent?. This function is called the adverbial function, and may be realized by single words (adverbs) or by multi-word expressions (adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses).

Adverbs are traditionally regarded as one of the parts of speech. However, modern linguists note that the term "adverb" has come to be used as a kind of "catch-all" category, used to classify words with various different types of syntactic behavior, not necessarily having much in common except that they do not fit into any of the other available categories (noun, adjective, preposition, etc.)

Jump to navigationJump to search

Functions

The English word adverb derives (through French) from Latin adverbium, from ad- ("to"), verbum ("word", "verb"), and the nominal suffix -ium. The term implies that the principal function of adverbs is to act as modifiers of verbs or verb phrases.^[1] An adverb used in this way may provide information about the manner, place, time, frequency, certainty, or other circumstances of the activity denoted by the verb or verb phrase. Some examples:

• She sang loudly (loudly modifies the verb sang, indicating the manner of singing)
• We left it here (here modifies the verb phrase left it, indicating place)
• I worked yesterday (yesterday modifies the verb worked, indicating time)
• You often make mistakes (often modifies the verb phrase make mistakes, indicating frequency)
• He undoubtedly did it (undoubtedly modifies the verb phrase did it, indicating certainty)

Adverbs can also be used as modifiers of adjectives, and of other adverbs, often to indicate degree. Examples:

• You are quite right (the adverb quite modifies the adjective right)
• She sang very loudly (the adverb very modifies another adverb – loudly)

They can also modify noun phrases, prepositional phrases,^[1] or whole clauses or sentences, as in the following examples:

• I bought only the fruit (only modifies the noun phrase the fruit)
• She drove us almost to the station (almost modifies the prepositional phrase to the station)
• Certainly we need to act (certainly modifies the sentence as a whole)

Adverbs are thus seen to perform a wide range of modifying functions. The major exception is the function of modifier of nouns, which is performed instead by adjectives (compare she sang loudly with her loud singing disturbed me; here the verb sang is modified by the adverb loudly, whereas the noun singing is modified by the adjective loud). However, as seen above, adverbs may modify noun phrases, and so the two functions may sometimes be superficially very similar:

• Even camels need to drink
• Even numbers are divisible by two

The word even in the first sentence is an adverb, since it is an "external" modifier, modifying camels as a noun phrase (compare even these camels ...), whereas the word even in the second sentence is an adjective, since it is an "internal" modifier, modifying numbers as a noun (compare these even numbers ...). It is nonetheless possible for certain adverbs to modify a noun; in English the adverb follows the noun in such cases,^[1] as in:

• The people here are friendly
• There is a shortage internationally of protein for animal feeds

Adverbs can sometimes be used as predicative expressions; in English this applies especially to adverbs of location:

• Your seat is there.

When the function of an adverb is performed by an expression consisting of more than one word, it is called an adverbial phrase or adverbial clause, or simply an adverbial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverb

https://www.google.com.co/imgres?imgurl=https://www.onlinemathlearning.com/image-files/adverbs.png&imgrefurl=https://www.onlinemathlearning.com/adverb.html&h=506&w=620&tbnid=5kxNatwCP3pJXM:&q=adverbs&tbnh=163&tbnw=200&usg=AFrqEzfUc5N-c_bcuajE0iYx6NbdDrFumA&vet=12ahUKEwjGw9qn97rdAhWInFkKHfDMBnsQ_B0wHHoECAkQCQ..i&docid=8OUSSLftDqha6M&itg=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGw9qn97rdAhWInFkKHfDMBnsQ_B0wHHoECAkQCQ

 EJEMPL.

1. 
   1.   I sometimes ride my bike.
   2.   I always ride my bike.
   3.   I often ride my bike.
   4.   I never ride my bike.

https://agendaweb.org/exercises/grammar/adverbs/frequency-2