Glossary of Linguistic Terms

Adverb (Linguistics)

Definition: 

Here are two senses for adverb:

  1. An adverb, narrowly defined, is a word belonging to a class of words which modify verbs for such categories as:
    • time
    • manner
    • place
    • direction
  2. An adverb, broadly defined, is a word belonging to a class of words which modify any constituent class of words other than nouns, such as:
    • verbs
    • adjectives
    • adverbs
    • phrases
    • clauses
    • sentences

Under this definition, the possible type of modification depends on the class of the constituent being modified.

Discussion: 

The general class adverb is a mixture of very different kinds of words, which cover a wide range of semantic concepts and whose syntactic distribution is disparate. The definition of the lexical category adverb is language-specific, based on syntactic distribution.

Many words traditionally called adverbs in English, such as degree words (very, awfully) and negatives (not), are set up as distinct word-classes in linguistic studies.

Examples: 

(English)

  • He went fast.
  • She slowly shut the door.
  • Nearly in a rage, he left.