adverb (n.) (A, adv, ADV)

A term used in the GRAMMATICAL classification of WORDS to refer to a heterogeneous group of items whose most frequent function is to specify the mode of action of the VERB. In English, many (by no means all) adverbs are signalled by the use of the -ly ending, e.g. quickly, but cf. soon. SYNTACTICALLY, one can relate adverbs to such QUESTIONS as how, where, when and why, and classify them accordingly, as adverbs of ‘manner’, ‘place’, ‘time’, etc.; but as soon as this is done the functional equivalence of adverbs, adverb phrases, PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES, NOUN phrases, and adverb clauses becomes apparent, e.g. A: When is she going? B: Now/Very soon/In five minutes/Next week/When the bell rings. An ‘adverb phrase’ (often abbreviated as AdvP) is a phrase with an adverb as its HEAD, e.g. very slowly, quite soon. The term adverbial is widely used as a general term which subsumes all five categories.

‘Adverb’ is thus a word-CLASS (along with NOUN, ADJECTIVE, etc.), whereas ‘adverbial’ is an ELEMENT of CLAUSE structure (along with SUBJECT, OBJECT, etc.), and the two usages need to be kept clearly distinct. Within adverbials, many syntactic roles have been identified, of which verb MODIFICATION has traditionally been seen as central. A function of adverbials as SENTENCE modifiers or sentence CONNECTORS has been emphasized in linguistic studies, e.g. However/Moreover/Actually/Frankly . . . I think she was right. Several other classes of items, very different in DISTRIBUTION and FUNCTION, have also been brought under the heading of ‘adverb(ial)’, such as INTENSIFIERS (e.g. very, awfully) and NEGATIVE PARTICLES (e.g. not); but often linguistic studies set these up as distinct word-classes.