THE ADVERB

§ 116. The adverb is a part of speech characterized by the
following features: *

1. The lexico-grammatical meaning of "qualitative, quan­
titative or circumstantial characteristics of actions, states
or qualities".

2. The category of the degrees of comparison.

3. Typical stem-building affixes, as in quick-ly, side­
ways, clock-wise, back-wards, a-shore, etc.

4. Its unilateral combinability with verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, less regularly with adlinks and nouns.

5. The function of adverbial complement, sometimes
other functions.

§ 117. The category of the degrees of comparison of ad­verbs is similar to that of adjectives. It is a system of three-member opposemes (soon — sooner — soonest; actively — more actively — most actively) showing whether the characteristic the adverb contains is absolute or relative. The 'comparative' and 'superlative' members of the opposeme are built up either synthetically (by means of affixation or suppletivity), or analytically (by means of word-morphemes). The synthet­ic and analytical forms are in complementary distribution like those of the adjective, only the number of- synthetic forms is smaller inasmuch as there are fewer monosyllabic and disyllabic adverbs. Cf. lazy — lazier — (the) laziest, lazily — more lazily — most lazily.

§ 118. With regard to the category of the degrees of comparison adverbs (like adjectives) fall into comparables and non-comparabies. The number of non-comparables is much greater among adverbs than among adjectives. In other words, there are many adverbs whose lexemes contain but one word (yesterday, always, northward, upstairs, etc.).

§ 119. As the definition of the lexico-grammatical mean­ing shows, adverbs may be divided into three lexico-grammat­ical subclasses: qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial.

§ 120. Qualitative adverbs like loudly, quickly, brightly, etc. usually modify verbs, less often adlinks. They show the quality of an action or state much in the same way as a qualitative adjective shows the quality of some substance. Cf. speaks loudly and loud speech, walks quickly and a quick walk.

The connection between qualitative adverbs and adjectives is obvious. In most cases the adverb is derived from the adjective with the help of the most productive adverb-forming suffix -ly. Like the corresponding adjectives qualitative adverbs usually have opposites of the comparative and super­lative degrees.

§ 121. On the strength of this likeness A. I. Smirnitsky advances the view that quick and quickly might be treated as belonging to the same part of speech, but having different combinability ^l. In other words, quick — quickly might be regarded as an adjectival grammatical opposeme, and -ly «s a grammatical morpheme of "adverbiality". We must take issue with Prof. Smirnitsky over this theory.

1. The most typical feature of a grammatical morpheme
distinguishing it from a lexico-grammatical one is its rela­
tivity ². As stated in §~10, the morpheme -s in books denotes
'plurality' because books is opposed to book with the zero
morpheme of 'singularity'. In the opposeme quick — quickly
it is also possible'to assert that -ly denotes 'adverbiality'
because quickly is opposed to quick with the zero morpheme of
'adjectivity'. But in purpose — purposely, part — partly,
night — nightly -ly denotes 'adverbiality', though it is not
opposed to the zero morpheme of 'adjectivity', but rather
to that of 'substance'. In first — firstly, second — secondly,
third — thirdly, etc. -ly denotes 'adverbiality' though it is
opposed to 'numerality'. In mocking — mockingly, admiring—
admiringly, confused — confusedly, broken — brokenly, etc.
the 'adverbiality' of -ly is opposed to 'participiality', etc.
In short, the 'adverbial' meaning in -ly is not relative, and
-ly is not a grammatical morpheme.

2. The suffix -ly is a lexico-grammatical morpheme which
accounts for its being common to all the words of an adverb
lexeme (see § 14), e. g. violently — more violently — most
violently.

¹ Op. cit., p. 175.

² See §§ 10, 14.

3. Though -ly is very productive, there are other lexico-
grammatical morphemes forming the stems of qualitative
adverbs from adjective stems, or else adverbs and adjectives
are related by conversion. Cf. loud a. — loudly, loud adv.,
aloud; long a. — long adv., longways, longwise.

4. There are many adjectives in -ly related by
conversion with corresponding adverbs early, daily, dead­
ly, etc.

There are other adjectives in -ly which have no correspond­ing adverbs, e. g. lovely, lonely, lively, etc.

5. The comparison of such words as

high a. — high adv., highly,

late a. — late adv., lately,

hard a. — hard adv., hardly,

near a. — near adv., nearly

shows that the suffix -ly introduces changes in the lexical meanings of words, so that words with and without -ly cannot belong to the same opposeme or lexeme.

The words probably, possibly, luckily, etc., derived from adjective stems, are no longer adverbs but modal words, so that the adjectives probable, possible, lucky have no corre­sponding adverbs, but they have corresponding modal words with the suffix -ly.

All these and similar facts show that -ly is not an infle­xion but a highly productive stem-building suffix. Therefore quick and quickly are not members of a grammatical opposeme. They have different stems and belong to different lexemes. These lexemes with different stems, different combinability and different syntactical functions, naturally, belong to dif­ferent parts of speech.

§ 122. Thus, qualitative adverbs, with or without -ly, are a subclass of adverbs with peculiar lexico-grammatical features. As they characterize the quality of an action or state, they are inwardly bound with a verb or an adlink and are usually placed as close as possible to the verb or adlink they modify.

And then nature mercifully intervened. (Gilbert).

Tony and the daughter of the Polish governor catch one glimpse of each other and are madly aflame. (The People's World).

88 "

§ 123. Quantitative adverbs like very, rather, too, nearly, greatly, fully, hardly, quite, utterly, twofold, etc. show the degree, measure, quantity of an action, quality, state, etc.

The combinability of this subclass is more extensive than that of the qualitative adverbs. Besides verbs and adlinks quantitative adverbs modify adjectives, adverbs, numerals, modals, even nouns.

You've quite vamped the foreman. (Galsworthy). Rather disconsolate she wandered out into the cathedral. (Galsworthy).

She knew it only too well. (Randall).

He had become fully aware of her. (Randall).

It was nearly ten. (Hornby).

He is wholly master of the situation. (Ruck).

Very probably he won't budge. (Christie).

The combinability of some adverbs of this subclass can be rather narrow. The adverb very (frightfully, awfully, etc.), for instance, mostly precedes those adjectives and adverbs which have opposites of comparison. It does not, as a rule, modify verbs, adlinks or numerals.

The combinability of nearly or almost, on the other hand, is so extensive, that these words are close to particles (see § 376).

Quantitative adverbs are correlative with quantitative pronouns, such as much, (a) little, enough (see § 179).

§ 124. Circumstantial adverbs serve to denote various circumstances (mostly local and temporal) attending an action. Accordingly they fall under two heads:

a) adverbs of time and frequency (yesterday, to-morrow,
before, often, again, twice, etc.),

b) adverbs of place and direction (upstairs, inside, behind,
homewards).

§ 125. Circumstantial adverbs are not inwardly connected with the verbs they are said to modify. They do not char­acterize the action itself but name certain circumstances attending the action described in the sentence and usually referring to the situation as a whole. Therefore a circumstan­tial adverb can be used in a sentence in which the only verb is a Ifnk-verb, i e. where no action is described.

E. g. He will be ten to-morrow.

I

This accounts for the fact that, unlike qualitative and quantitative adverbs, circumstantial adverbs are not neces­sarily placed near the verb, they may occupy different places in the sentence.

E. g. It wasn't any too warm yesterday. (Lewis). Yesterday they had a snow-squall out west. (Lewis).

When H. Sweet * speaks of adverbs, as showing "almost the last remains of normal free order in Modern English", it concerns, mostly, circumstantial adverbs.

Similarly G. Curme's ² words that "An adverb can freely stand in almost any position" mainly apply to circumstantial adverbs.

Barring some adverbs with the -ward(s) suffix (backwards, inwards), the -ice suffix (twice, thrice), circumstantial adverbs have no typical stem-building elements (Cf. with the -ly suffix incident to qualitative adverbs). They are often mor­phologically indivisible (north, home, down, etc.), even more often are they related by conversion with prepositions (in, out, behind), conjunctions (since, before), nouns (north, home), adjectives (late, far) or they are homonymous with lexical word-morphemes (in, out, up, see § 13).

§ 126. Only a small group of circumstantial adverbs denoting indefinite time and place (soon, late, often, near, far) have opposites of comparison. Most adverbs of this sub­class form no opposemes of any grammatical category.

§ 127. Circumstantial adverbs are mostly used in the function of adverbial modifiers of time and place.

See you tonight. (Lewis).

Going clear down-town? (Lewis). ,

But sometimes they can be used in other functions, e. g. as attributes.

E. g. See the notes above. (Hornby). The room upstairs is vacant.

§ 128. The words of an adverb lexeme like soon — sooner— soonest represent three grammemes with one actual grammat-

¹ H. Sweet, op cit , v. 11, § 1883.

² G. Curme, op. cit., p. 130.

ical meaning each. Lexemes like forward, yesterday, ahead contain but one word each with the oblique grammatical meaning of the 'positive degree'. There are no adverbs in English with the oblique meaning of the 'comparative' and the 'superlative' degrees. Thus we may speak of but four grammemes in the class of adverbs.

The figures in the table below show their relative frequency of occurrence (per cent). The analysed texts were mostly those of the 20th century. Synthetic and analytical forms have been counted separately.

 

Gram me me	Form	Representatives	Fre­quency
Positive actual		soon, strongly	45.4
Positive oblique	Ч	forward, yesterday	43.0
Comparative	synth.	sooner, better	7.0
	analyt.	more proudly	1.5
Superlative	synth.	soonest, best	2.3
	analyt.	most strongly	0.8
			100.0

As we see, the relative frequency of adverbs with oblique 'positive degree' meaning is much greater than that of similar adjectives (see § 111).

§ 129. When comparing English and Russian adverbs as parts of speech, one may say that they differ but slightly. Their lexico-grammatical meanings, morphological catego­ries, combinability and syntactical functions are fundamen­tally the same.

Nevertheless, certain distinctions are worth noting

1. The stem-building (lexico-grammatical) morphemes of
Russian adverbs are somewhat more numerous and varied.

2. Among the adverb building morphemes ve find sevejal
suffixes of subjective appraisal (-онько/-енько, -окечко/-енечко,
-oxoHbKOl-ехонько, -овато), which are absolutely alien to
English.

3. The adverbialization of substantival or adjectival
grammemes, (e. g. шагом, стрелой, весной) is the mosi

productive way of forming adverbs in Russian ^J, whereas in English it is less common.

4. As to the degrees of comparison one might say that the synthetic form of the superlative grammeme (подробнейше, нижайше, малейше) is no longer used colloquially and is employed for some stylistic purpose. The corresponding English grammeme (oftenest, soonest) occurs in different speech styles.