Questions tagged [adverbs]
A class of words that modify the meaning of a verb, adjective, another adverb, clause, or sentence. Examples in English are "quickly", "often" or "today". Not to be confused with adverbials (sometimes also called "modifiers"), which may consist of a group of words and not necessarily of adverbs.
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About phrasal verbs, separable verb and verbs with adverbs
I was wondering about the concepts listed in the title. In one side we have the separable verbs in German, like mitkommen:
Ich komme mit.
On the other hand we have phrasal verbs such as think over ...
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Difference between adverb and preposition in English?
Sorry if this is a basic question, but I am in the weeds playing with language and finally encountered confusion when digging into prepositions in English. It appears to me that prepositions are ...
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How does an opaque context come about in adverbials?
I cannot get my head around examples (19) and (20) in Maienborn & Schäfer (2011) (in v. Heusinger, Maienborn & Portner (eds), HSK 33.2). How is it that necessarily (as an epistemic adverbial) ...
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Why are these adjectives being presented as adverbs in syntax tree (Carnie, 3rd Edition)?
I am in a Syntax class where we use the textbook Syntax: A Generative Introduction, 3rd Edition by Andrew Carnie.
There is a tree presented in the chapter on x-bar theory that indicates that the words ...
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What is the benefit of tenses when time period can be pinned down by adverbs? [closed]
In language like English and German, there is two ways to indicate time period. One is with conjugation and the other with time adverbs. To my understanding, the adverbs allow for exact pinning down ...
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Do any languages greatly restrict the placement of adjectives/adverbs in a phrase or sentence?
I am working on a conlang and wondering how natural languages might limit the placement of "modifiers" (adjectives and adverbs) in a sentence.
For example:
I eventually walked to the store.
...
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The order of intensives(such, so, too) with adjective and noun
I'm a common non-English speaking person, who gets into English and cognitive linguistics.
I find some adverbs like "so", "as", and "too" precede articles, as follows
It ...
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Correlation between the English -wise and German -weise suffixes
The English meaning of -wise is the following.
-wise adverb combining form
Definition of -wise (Entry 5 of 5)
1a : in the manner of
crabwise fanwise
b : in the position or direction of
...
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Why would an adverb change the mood of a predicate?
With some limited knowledge (undergrad), I am trying to understand why (what appears to be) an adverb would change a predicate from irrealis to realis. This is a really complicated question, but ...
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Are there languages which restrict adverb usage to only one of either preceding or following a verb?
We have adverb sentences like this:
I basically initially ran quickly.
That means the same thing pretty much as:
I basically initially quickly ran.
First part of the question is, why do some ...
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What are the pros and cons of having adjectives appear first?
In the English, we say:
Red apple
Red is an adjective. apple is a noun. Red tells us that, well, the apple is red.
In other languages, such as Arabic, it is the other way around. I.e.:
تفاحة ...
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Does an adverb either modify verbs (not adjectives and adverbs), or modify adjectives and adverbs (not verbs)?
From Manning's Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing:
Adverbs modify a verb in the same way that adjectives modify adverb nouns. Adverbs specify place, time, manner or degree:
(3....
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What do features ±F and ±N mean?
Could anybody please help me understand what the [±F] and [±N] features mean? What do they stand for, I have no idea .... (The article elucidates in terms of GB theory)
Given these observations, ...
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-wise, -mente, -ment: How many languages use the "mind" metaphor for adjectives made adverbs?
When I noticed that English, Spanish, Italian, and French use the "mind" metaphor to turn certain adjectives into adverbs (not all, cf "-ly" from English). That is, as it was explained to me by a ...
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Antecedents of prepositions and adverbs
It seems that some prepositions and clausal adverbs have antecedents while others do not – for example because and therefore require antecedents, while in and clearly do not. I was wondering whether ...
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Aside from English clause adverbs, are there other suborders?
A suborder is a set of related expression elements which are more strictly ordered with respect to each other than they are with respect to other expression elements. This is my own term. I offer ...
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Are there languages that inflect adverbs for gender
Triggered by this answer, I am curious: Are there languages that inflect adverbs for gender or noun class?
I have consulted the following two questions but the given inflections of adverbs in their ...
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Does StanfordNLP have a problem with adverbs?
I suspect not, and I'm being dumb, but ...
Usain ran quickest.
is parsed (https://corenlp.run) as
NNP VBZ JJS.
Why JJS (Adjective, superlative) and not RBS (Adverb, superlative)?
Using extended ...
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Describing continuity and change (like mou and mada in Japanese)
In Japanese, mada まだ refers to a continuing state: 'still (as it was)' or 'not (changed) yet', and mou もう is about change: 'already (changed)' or 'no longer (the same)'. Are there other languages ...
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Analysis of adverbial phrases composed of NOUN and NOUN
There is a certain adverbial pattern composed of "[NOUN] and [NOUN]".
We work day and night.
It's raining cats and dogs.
They're arguing / going at it hammer and tongs.
I've seen that &...
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Characterising adverbial constructions
I know adverbs are multifarious, but I’d like to find out just how farious they are. I’m trying to work out what properties they can have by looking at variations in the way different ones can be used....
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Is "bien décidés" an adjectival phrase?
Mais il me faut quelques volontaires bien décidés.
in that sentence, décidés is considered as an adjective right? So does the phrase bien décidés an adjectival phrase or adverbial phrase?
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What is the syntax of "second" in phrases like "the second most common problem"?
In English, words like "second", "third" etc. (also "next", I guess) can be used with a superlative to count down from the maximum.
Some dictionaries call "second" an adverb in this context (e.g. MW, ...
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Formal semantics (Montague, type-theoretical) of adverbial clauses
Partee has nice summary about the formal semantics of relative clause http://people.umass.edu/partee/MGU_2005/MGU05Lec10.pdf (subordinate adjectival clause). E.g.
At least one boy who Mary loves is ...
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'Ago' and 'on' vs. 'in'
Consider the phrase a month in in the following sentences:
[1] a. Richmond turned nineteen his third week in Vietnam. A̲l̲m̲o̲s̲t̲ ̲a̲ ̲m̲o&...
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The tree diagram of he refuted the allegation that he is gay [closed]
The tree diagram of "he refuted the allegation that he is gay"
How can it be drawn
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Are there languages in which adverbs inflect?
Are there any languages in which adverbs (in the sense of verb modifiers) inflect to match the verb they modify?
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What is the part of speech of 'modifiers to adjectives'?
This is something I was just thinking about. Adjectives in a lot of languages can also take modifiers of their own: very big, more intelligent, etc... But is there an actual word for the part of ...
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AdvP Merged in Spec XP or Adjoined to XP
Radford (2011) merges AdvPs in the specifiers of the phrases that they modify. What are the advantages of such an analysis over augmented XPs (AdvP adjoined to XP)?
If I'm not mistaken, specifiers ...
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Why can interrogatives so often be used-as/made-into intensifier adverbs?
Why does the ability to take normally interrogative words like "what" and "how", and turn them into intensifier adverbs, seem like such a language universal concept?
In Japanese, you can take the ...
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X-bar: Put 'Where' in a Determiner Phrase or in an Adverb Phrase?
I'm currently working on an introductory guide to X-bar Theory for a group of students, and was wondering whether to classify a specific part as a Determiner Phrase or an Adverb Phrase. I have ...
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Do other languages than English have verbals ,too?
As I understand it, verbals are nouns,adjectives and adverbs which are derived from verbs.
I don't understand if a verbal is indeed one of the three parts of speeches mentioned or a part of speech of ...
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What kind of phrase is "until recently"?
I learned about prepositions:
they establish a relation with two words
the preposition is followed by an object
-the object of a prepositional phrase is made by a noun phrase
However, I don't know ...
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Is "down at the bar" an adjective phrase or adverb phrase?
There are three parts of speeches attributed to "down" in the dictionary: adjective, adverb and verb.
I understand , that at the bar is a sub phrase and a prepositional phrase.
I don't know the rules ...
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Which word is the head of the phrase "somewhere there"?
Robocop's catchphrase is
somewhere there is a crime happening
If the sentence was just a crime is happening it would be unproblematic for me:
a crime would be a noun phrase in the function of a ...
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What is the idea behind calling the adverb the garbage can of words?
As chance would have it, I came across three unrelated persons each describing the adverb as the
the garbage can among the word classes.
It happened in Germany and the original wording was:
...
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Is the adverbial phrase and adverb phrase identical?
context
I understand there are different theories of grammar. There is the a set of traditional pragmatic grammars aiming at teaching languages, which might not even have names for themselves. Then, ...
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Is the word "here" a preposition?
In a related question, I got entangled in a debate whether the word "here" (which I would classify readily as an adverb) is in reality a preposition. I am curious which modern analyses find ...
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'Before'/'after' as a spatial metaphor: is the opposite possible?
In English (and, apparently, most Indo-European languages, if not in all), a common trait can be noticed concerning the prepositions/adverbs of temporal reference: 'before' and (to a lesser extent in ...
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Difference between particle and adverb in English
Some dictionaries such as Cambridge Online Dictionary defines the word particle as
a word or a part of a word that has a grammatical purpose but often has little or no meaning: In the sentence "I ...
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Adverbs as NP pre-modifiers
I would like to ask about the syntactic analysis of adverbs as what is called "peripheral noun modifiers" in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, p436, which is illustrated in the following ...
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Looking for time adverbs & frequency adverbs lists in english
I'm a linguistic student and I'm looking for a reliable source (Scientific paper, dictionary or even reliable internet website) which lists time adverbs & frequency adverbs in English.
Anyone can ...
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Bare-NP Adverbs in German
There is a special class of noun phrases in English that have the ability to function as adverbial modifiers, unaccompanied by a preposition or any other indicator of adjunct status. These are the so-...
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Split-INFL Hypothesis and X-Bar Theory
According to the Split-INFL hypothesis, the subject of a sentence moves from the specifier of the predicate to SpecTP to satisfy the EPP and lastly to SpecAgrSP to obtain NOM case. Is there any reason ...
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Is there a term for words that modify the intensity of something
Is there a term for words such as very extremely likely super , which modify the intensity of something?
Obviously these are all adverbs, but yesterday is also an adverb, and that does not change the ...
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Particles and Words Affixing Heads and Phrases
In Malay, there are quite a few words and particles that can affix or modify both heads and phrases. The interrogative suffix -kah is one of them.
-Kah affixing heads
Tidak-kah sakit kecederaan ...
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What part of speech is 'two o'clock' in this sentence? [closed]
I thought adverbs didn't modify nouns but then what's going on in these sentences:
It is nearly two o'clock
We were there for nearly an hour
The town is nearly forty miles from here
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The Syntax of 'Only'
The adverb 'only' is known to be able to come in a variety of positions. The following examples demonstrate that it may be generated in positions that aren't so simple to syntactically analyse. The ...
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Colloquial use of adjective that is actually acting as an adverb -- examples or formal use?
In a song by rap group NWA they say this:
"The bitch sucked one hell of a dick"
Disregarding the potentially offensive nature of the quote, it stood out to me that although "hell of a" is an ...
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Why can verbs with imperfective morphology have a perfective meaning?
Some languages, e.g., Russian (1), Bulgarian (5) or Greek, show perfective readings of morphosyntactically imperfective verbs:
(1) Jakov ezdil na more dvazhdy za poslednij god.
J. rode.IPF ...
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