Chapter 7. Adverb

The research which was made by the group of scientists (Douglas Biber, Geofrey Leech, Susan Conrad and some others) showed that adjectives and adverbs are extremely common to all spheres of English namely: newspaper language, academic prose, conversation and fiction. But adjectives like nouns are more frequent in news and academic prose while adverbs are most frequent in conversation and fiction. According to David Crystal the adverb is the most heterogeneous of all the word classes in English. In a clause they can either be integrated into an element of the clause or function themselves .In the first case they function as modifiers in the second case they are adverbials. M. Blokh defines the adverb as a word expressing either property of an action, or property of another property, or circumstances in which an action occurs. He elaborates on the actual correlation between the adverb and the adjective. Thus the adverb is defined as the notional word, expressing a non substantive property, that is the property of non-substantive referent. According to W.Francis (The structure of American English) adverbs make rather complicated group of words, varying widely in form and distribution. Their primary identifying characteristic is: their ability to fill certain positions in utterances. He clarifies his view point by the following sentence:

The man told (us) his story [hopefully…]. Any word that fits the position of [hopefully] is an adverb. This “utterance-final following a noun” position becomes a primary structural criterion for adverbs. He exemplifies his outlook with eight “illustrative adverbs” (hopefully, eagerly, aloud, actor -wise, backwards, somehow, over and here) which become formal markers that identify eight subgroups into which the whole class of adverbs may be divided on the basis of their form. He singles out homophonous adverbs (identical with prepositions which appear in the characteristic adverb position) Ex. he brought the cat in, I left my hat and coat inside

those, that have no formal markers to distinguish them in isolation( here belong such words as here, still, downstairs)which are found in adverb position.

The most common characteristic of the adverb is morphological:the majority of adverbs have the derivational suffix -ly. Ex. weekly, wisely, beautifully.

While it’s true of some the whole class is far more diverse in form. There are four major categories of adverbs and each contains variations within it:

• simple adverbs ( single words such as well, rather, quite) ;

• compound adverbs(anyway, heretofore);

• adverbs, derived by suffixation ( suffixes -wise, -wards are used to form adverbs afterwards, homewards);

• fixed phrases. There are some fixed phrases which are used as adverbs. They are invariant in form and the component words rarely retain their independent meaning. Ex. of course, kind of , at last.

There are two types of syntactic function that characterize ad­verbs. One of the primary functions of adverbs is to modify adjectives. This is slightly larger than the calculated value.

They also serve as modifiers of other adverbs. They will figure it out really fast.

According to R.Quirck, S.Greenbaum and G.Leech an adverb may function as adverbial, a constituent distinct from subject, verb, object, and complement.

Three classes of adverbials are established [...] adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts.

Adjuncts are integrated within the structure of the clause to at least some extent. E.g.: They are waiting outside. I can now under­stand. it.

Disjuncts and conjuncts, on the other hand, are not integrated within the clause, Semantically, disjuncts express an evaluation of what is being said either with respect to the form of the communica­tion or to its content. E.g.: Frankly, I am tired.

Semantically, conjuncts have a connective function. They indicate (he connection between what is being said and what was said before. E.g.; We have complained several times about the noise, awlyet he does nothing about it. If they open ail the windows, then I'm leaving.

M. Blokh divides the whole class of adverbs into qualitative (express immediate, non graded qualities of actions),quantitative (include words of degree) and circumstantional adverbs( subdivided into functional and notional)of

nominal and pronominal nature.

Qualitative orientative

(including genuine, qualitative adverbs, degree adverbs)

(temporal and local adverbs)

to this group belong adverbs of time,place, maner, cause which function as syntactic connectors and question forming functionals.