We often use more and most, less and least to show degree with adverbs:

The student who reads fastest will finish first.

Walk faster if you want to keep up with me.

Like adjectives, adverbs can have comparative and superlative forms to show degree. Thus we would say that 'the students showed a really wonderful attitude' and that 'the students showed a wonderfully casual attitude' and that 'my professor is really tall, but not 'He ran real fast.' Used with permission.Īdverbs can modify adjectives, but an adjective cannot modify an adverb. Trademarks and service marks of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. Schoolhouse Rock® and its characters and other elements are

He calls his mother as often as possible.Ĭlick on 'Lolly's Place' to read and hear Bob Dorough's 'Get Your Adverbs Here' (from Scholastic Rock, 1974).īut there are other kinds of adverbial phrases: She hurried to the mainland to see her brother.Prepositional phrases frequently have adverbial functions (telling place and time, modifying the verb):Īnd Infinitive phrases can act as adverbs (usually telling why): When a group of words not containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb, it is called an adverbial phrase. When this class is over, we're going to the movies.If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb (modifying the verb of a sentence), it is called an Adverb Clause:

That lovely woman lives in a friendly neighborhood.The words lovely, lonely, motherly, friendly, neighborly, for instance, are adjectives:

Adverbs frequently end in -ly however, many words and phrases not ending in -ly serve an adverbial function and an -ly ending is not a guarantee that a word is an adverb. How slowly did she move?)Īs we will see, adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under what conditions something happens or happened. another adverb (She moved quite slowly down the aisle.an adjective (He drove a very fast car.

What do adverbs do