Monday, November 28, 2016

PART OF SPEECH; "ADVERB"



What is an Adverb?
adverb (noun): a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb, expressing manner, place, time or degree; a word that can modify a phrase, clause or sentence
An adverb is a word that tells us more about a verb. It "qualifies" or "modifies" a verb (The man ran quickly). In the following examples, the adverb is in bold and the verb that it modifies is in italics.
  • John speaks loudly. (How does John speak?)
  • Afterwards she smoked a cigarette. (When did she smoke?)
  • Mary lives locally. (Where does Mary live?)
But adverbs can also modify adjectives (Tara is really beautiful), or even other adverbs (It works very well). Look at these examples:
  • Modify an adjective:
    - He is really handsome. (How handsome is he?)
    - That was extremely kind of you.
  • Modify another adverb:
    - She drives incredibly slowly. (How slowly does she drive?)
    - He drives extremely fast.
Note that adverbs have other functions, too. They can:
  • Modify a whole sentence: Obviously, I can't know everything.
  • Modify a prepositional phrase: It's immediately inside the door.
Adverb Form
We make many adverbs by adding -ly to an adjective, for example:
  • quick (adjective) > quickly (adverb)
  • careful (adjective) > carefully (adverb)
  • beautiful (adjective) > beautifully (adverb)
There are some basic rules about spelling for -ly adverbs. See the table below:
adjective ending
do this
adjective
adverb
most adjectives
add -ly
quick
nice
sole
careful
quickly
nicely
solely
carefully
-able or -ible
change -e to -y
regrettable
horrible
regrettably
horribly
-y
change -y to -ily
happy
happily
-ic
change -ic to -ically
economic
economically
But not all words that end in -ly are adverbs. The following -ly words, for example, are all adjectives:
  • friendly, lovely, lonely, neighbourly
And some adverbs have no particular form. Look at these examples:
  • well, fast, very, never, always, often, still
Note that “the form of an adverb can also change to make it comparative or superlative”.

Kinds of Adverbs

Here you can see the basic kinds of adverbs.

Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of Manner tell us the manner or way in which something happens. They answer the question "how?". Adverbs of Manner mainly modify verbs.
  • He speaks slowly. (How does he speak?)
  • They helped us cheerfully. (How did they help us?)
  • James Bond drives his cars fast. (How does James Bond drive his cars?)
We normally use Adverbs of Manner with dynamic (action) verbs, not with stative or state verbs.
  • He ran fast. She came quickly. They worked happily.
  • She looked beautifully. It seems strangely. They are happily.

Adverbs of Place

Adverbs of Place tell us the place where something happens. They answer the question "where?". Adverbs of Place mainly modify verbs.
  • Please sit here. (Where should I sit?)
  • They looked everywhere. (Where did they look?)
  • Two cars were parked outside. (Where were two cars parked?)

Adverbs of Time

Adverbs of Time tell us something about the time that something happens. Adverbs of Time mainly modify verbs.
They can answer the question "when?":
  • He came yesterday. (When did he come?)
  • I want it now. (When do I want it?)
Or they can answer the question "how often?" (frequency):
  • They deliver the newspaper daily. (How often do they deliver the newspaper?)
  • We sometimes watch a movie. (How often do we watch a movie?)

Adverbs of Degree

Adverbs of Degree tell us the degree or extent to which something happens. They answer the question "how much?" or "to what degree?". Adverbs of Degree can modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.
  • She entirely agrees with him. (How much does she agree with him?)
  • Mary is very beautiful. (To what degree is Mary beautiful? How beautiful is Mary?)
  • He drove quite dangerously. (To what degree did he drive dangerously? How dangerously did he drive?)

Adverb Position

When an adverb modifies a verb, there are usually 3 possible positions within the sentence or clause:
1. FRONT - before subject

Now
I will read a book.
2. MID - between subject + verb
I
often
read books.
3. END - after verb/object
I read books
carefully.

When an adverb modifies an adjective or another adverb, it usually goes in front of the word that it modifies, for example:

adverb
adjective

She gave him a
really
dirty
look.

adverb
adverb

We
quite
often
study English.
The position of an adverb often depends on the kind of adverb (manner, place, time, degree). The following table gives you some guidelines for placement based on the kind of adverb.
kind of adverb
mainly modifies
sentence
usual position

adverb

manner
verbs
She spoke
gently.

END
place
verbs
He lived
here.

END
time
definite
verbs
I'll do it
today.

END
frequency
We
often
go to Paris.
MID
degree
verbs, adj. and adv.
I
nearly
died.
MID
It was
terribly
funny.
before adj.
He works
really
fast.
before adv.
Warning: these are guidelines only, and not complete. There are many exceptions.


source:https://www.englishclub.com/grammar/

Thursday, November 24, 2016

PART OF SPEECH; "ADJECTIVE"

Adjectives are an important part of speech. They usually describe a person or thing. They tell us what somebody or something is like.
A.   WHAT’S ADJECTIVE?
adjective (noun): a part-of-speech that modifies or describes a noun or a pronoun
An adjective is one of the eight parts of speech.
An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun. It "describes" or "modifies" a noun (The big dog was hungry). In these examples, the adjective is in bold and the noun that it modifies is in italics.
An adjective often comes BEFORE a noun:
  • a green car
  • a dark sky
  • an interesting story
And sometimes an adjective comes AFTER a verb:
  • My car is green.
  • The sky became dark.
  • His story seemed interesting.
But adjectives can also modify pronouns (She is beautiful). Look at these examples:
  • They were empty.
  • I thought it seemed strange.
  • Those are not expensive.
Note that we can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young French lady / it is black and white).
The adjective is the enemy of the noun
This is sometimes said because, very often, if we use the precise noun we don't need an adjective. For example, instead of saying "a large, impressive house" (2 adjectives + 1 noun) we could simply say "a mansion" (1 noun).
Adjective Form
Some adjectives have particular endings, for example:
  • -able/-ible: washable, credible
  • -ish/-like: childish, childlike
  • -ful/-less: careful, careless
  • -ous: dangerous, harmonious
  • -y: dirty, pretty
However, many adjectives have no obvious form.
Comparative, Superlative
Most adjectives can be comparative or superlative, for example:
  • big, bigger, biggest
  • good, better, best
  • beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful
B.     ADJECTIVE ORDER
There are 2 basic positions for adjectives:
  1. before the noun
  2. after some verbs (be, become, get, seem, look, feel, sound, smell, taste)


adj.
before
noun


adj.
after
verb
1
I have a
big
dog.


2


Snow
is
white.
Adjective Before Noun
We often use more than one adjective before the noun:
  • I like big black dogs.
  • She was wearing a beautiful long red dress.
What is the correct order for two or more adjectives?
1. First of all, the general order is:
opinion, fact
"Opinion" is what you think about something. "Fact" is what is definitely true about something.
  • a lovely new dress (not a new lovely dress)
  • a boring French film (not a French boring film)
2. The "normal" order for fact adjectives is
size, shape, age, colour / origin / material / purpose
  • a small 18th-century French coffee table
  • a rectangular black wooden box
3. Determiners usually come first, even though some grammarians regard them as fact adjectives:
  • articles (a, the)
  • possessives (my, your...)
  • demonstratives (this, that...)
  • quantifiers (some, any, few, many...)
  • numbers (one, two, three)
Note that when we want to use two colour adjectives, we join them with "and":
  • Many newspapers are black and white.
  • She was wearing a long, blue and yellow dress.
Here are some examples of adjective order:

adjectives
head noun
determiner
opinion adjectives
fact adjectives
other
size, shape, age, colour
origin
material
purpose*
two
ugly

black


guard
dogs
a

well-known

Chinese


artist
a


small, 18th-century
French

coffee
table
your
fabulous

new


sports
car
a
lovely

pink and green
Thai
silk

dress
some


black
Spanish
leather
riding
boots
a


big black and white



dog
this

cheap


plastic
rain
coat
an


old

wooden
fishing
boat
my


new


tennis
racket
a
wonderful

15th-century
Arabic


poem
*often a noun used as an adjective
Not all grammarians agree about the exact order of adjectives, and the detailed rules are complicated. The rules on this page are for the normal, "natural" order of adjectives. These rules are not rigid, and you may sometimes wish to change the order for emphasis. Consider the following conversations:

Conversation 1
A "I want to buy a round table."
B "Do you want a new round table or an old round table?"

Conversation 2
A "I want to buy an old table".
B "Do you want a round old table or a square old table?"
Adjective After Verb
An adjective can come after some verbs, such as: be, become, feel, get, look, seem, smell, sound
Even when an adjective comes after the verb and not before a noun, it always refers to and qualifies the subject of the clause, not the verb.
Look at the examples below: subject verb adjective
  • Ram is English.
  • Because she had to wait, she became impatient.
  • Is it getting dark?
  • The examination did not seem difficult.
  • Your friend looks nice.
  • This towel feels damp.
  • That new film doesn't sound very interesting.
  • Dinner smells good tonight.
  • This milk tastes sour.
  • It smells bad.
These verbs are "stative" verbs, which express a state or change of state, not "dynamic" verbs which express an action. Note that some verbs can be stative in one sense (she looks beautiful | it got hot), and dynamic in another (she looked at him | he got the money). The above examples do not include all stative verbs.
Note also that in the above structure (subject verb adjective), the adjective can qualify a pronoun since the subject may be a pronoun.



source:https://www.englishclub.com