Delahunty and Garvey
meaning examples
Time today, yesterday, now, then
Place here, there
Direction northward
Manner well, slowly, convincingly, quietly
Frequency often, regularly
Degree completely, thoroughly, absolutely
table 9: semantic classes of adverbs
These categories are worth remembering, since most of them also apply to
prepositions, which will be considered in our chapter on Minor Parts of
Speech. In addition, some of these adverbs (e.g., then, there) serve as substi-
tutes for prepositional phrases.
Our analysis eliminates the traditional categorization of words such as very
and quite as adverbs, though the examples below show that they can modify
adjective and adverbs:
(21) a. very old
b. quite frequently
c. only occasionally
Traditionally, these words are often lumped together with degree adverbs. We
have already classified these words as intensifiers.
Exercise
Apply Analytic Tests 12-13 to demonstrate that the italicized words in
(21) are not adverbs.
references and resources
Bauer, Laurie. 1983. English Word-formation. London, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
_____ 1988. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh
University Press.
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward
Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow,
UK: Longman.
Celce-Murcia, Marianne, and Diane Larsen-Freeman. 1999. The Grammar