We learned that adverbs are the words that describe verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and clauses. For example:
- Ria very happily accepted the new project that was the gateway for her promotion.
In this sentence, the adverb “happily” describes the adverb “accepted”. How did Ria accept the new project? She did so happily. Furthermore, the adverb “very” describes the adverb “happily”. How happily did Ria accept the new project? She did so very happily. So here the adverb presents the extent or degree of happiness.
Now apart from just words, even phrases and clauses can act as adjectives. For example:
- Joe finished his dinner at 9 pm.
Notice here that “at 9 pm” is a prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases can modify nouns as well as verbs. Those prepositional phrases that modify verbs act as adverbs. In this sentence, the prepositional phrase “at 9 pm” modifies the verb “finished”. It talks about the “when” aspect of this action.
- Mary mixed the cake dough with an egg beater.
In this sentence, the prepositional phrase “with an egg beater” describes how Mary mixed the cake.
- Nancy hid the marbles under the pillow because she did not want to give them to her brother.
Here, the dependent clause “because she did not want to give them to her brother” is an adverb because it modifies the verb of the preceding main clause. Why did Nancy hide the marbles? She did so because she did not want to give them to her brother.
So as you saw in the above four example sentences, adverbs provide some more information about the entity that they describe and adverbs can be a single word or a phrase or a clause.
Adverbs can also be used to make comparisons. When we make comparisons, we need to use adverbs in their comparative or superlative forms. Read this post to learn more about Usage of Comparative and Superlative Adverbs
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