A practical english grammar - Vyssaja skola 1978
The adverb
Sound symbols
The adverb is the fourth major class of words in English. The category is not as easy to define as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, since adverbs have many kinds of meaning and form, and their grammar is quite complex. In meaning, adverbs express such ideas as manner, time, and place (location or destination). Only manner adverbs have a recognizable form, most of them (but not all) consisting of the ending -ly on an adjective base. Other adverbs can not be recognized by their form. They may modify almost any kind of construction in English: nouns, adjectives, verbs, other adverbs, prepositions, single words, phrases, or even whole sentences. In some cases a speaker may put an adverb almost anywhere in a sentence without changing the meaning very much; in other cases, the position of the adverb is rigidly fixed; and there are grades of variation between these two extremes in the freedom of placement of adverbs in the sentence.
Adverbs that modify adjectives. The use of intensifiers with adjectives was discussed in Chapter 15. Some special idiomatic combinations of words with adjectives (red hot, wide open, etc.) were presented at the beginning of this chapter.
Adverbs ending in -ly that show the range of application of an adjective precede the adjective.
a chemically pure substance
a financially sound undertaking
Adverbs modifying verbs, predicates, or the sentence as a whole. These adverbs vary according to whether they arc parenthetical or integral. A parenthetical adverb usually expresses some comment of the speaker (or writer) on what is being stated; an integral adverb is used to modify an element in the sentence.
Frankly, I don’t understand his attitude.
“Frankly” means approximately, “I, the speaker, am being frank when I say that . . .” Such parenthetical adverbs can be put almost anywhere, although preferably they occur at the beginning of the sentence (as above) or after the object.
I don’t understand his attitude, frankly.
When they occur last, they are spoken with a rising intonation after a pause, almost as an afterthought.
When the adverb is integral, it states the manner in which the predicate is (was, etc.) performed.
He frankly admitted his mistake.
Three normal positions of adverbs.
1) Initially: before the subject.
2) Medially: between the subject and the object.
3) Finally: after the object.
The medial position is difficult to define, owing to the many forms that the predicate may take. Normally, medial position is one of the following:
Type 1: Just before the verb, if the verb consists of one word only and is not a form of be followed by a complement or displaced subject.
He never plays tennis.
We occasionally see them.
I always visit my mother on Sundays.
We occasionally do.
They often are.
There seldom are.
Type 2: Just before the second word in verb phrases (disregarding not or inverted subjects in questions).
He doesn’t ever play tennis.
We would occasionally see them.
Don’t you always visit your mother on Sundays?
Has he not often done that?
Type 3: Just before the expression following be, if the verb is a one- word form of be that is not final in the phrase.
They are never on time.
Is he often here?
Are you always so busy?
There’s always a crowd in the store on Saturdays.
Type 4: Just before the verb, regardless of its form, in emphatic statements.
They never are on time.
There always is a crowd in the store on Saturdays.
We occasionally do see them.
In the discussion that follows, when medial position is mentioned, it is understood to mean what has just been described.