Rifafarhanamuflih: 2013

Verbs and Adverbs

DEFINITION OF VERB

The verb is the most complex part of speech. Its varying arrangements with nouns determine the different kinds of sentences―statements, questions, commands, exclamations. Like the noun, the verb has grammatical properties of person and number, properties which require agreement with the subject. But the verb also has several other grammatical properties that are shared with no other part of speech. These properties are:

TENSE. Special verb endings or accompanying auxiliary verbs signal the time an event takes place.

VOICE. Special verb forms are arranged in certain positions with nouns to indicate whether the grammatical subject of a sentence is performing an action (The policeman arrested the burglar—active voice) or is itself being acted upon (The burglar was arrested by the policeman―passive voice).

MOOD. Special verb forms mark (a) commands and requests; (b) statements expressing wishes, unreal conditions, or matters of urgency or importance.

ASPECT. Certain verb forms, often with accompanying adverbial expressions, may indicate whether an event is to be regarded as a single point on a time continuum, a repetition of points, or single duration with a beginning, a middle and an end. It is the aspect of duration that the English verb most readily expresses through the progressive forms of the tenses.

TYPES OF VERBS
Classified by Complement of Verb

The types of verbs described here differ according to the kind of complement they may have. Because these types may cut across each other, a verb may belong to more than one type.

Predicating or Linking Verbs

A predicating verb is the chief word in the predicate that says something about the subject. The predicating word (or predicator) has traditionally been called a verb of “action” (babies cry; She wrote a letter), but has actually been interpreted to include most non-action verbs that are not linking verbs (for example, I remember him; She needs more money). The term event is probably a more exact way to refer to what is denoted by a predicating verb, and is the term that will be favored in this book.

A linking verb is a verb of incomplete predication; it merely announces that the real predicate follows. The important word in the complement is usually an adjective (The girl is pretty) or a noun (She is a pretty girl). The –ly adverbs of manner (quickly, angrily) are not used with linking verbs. The more common linking verbs are appear, be, become, get (in the sense of become), look, remain, seem.
Also functioning as linking verbs are the verbs of perception-feel, taste, smell, sound.

The milk tastes sour
The rose smells sweet.

Included among the linking verbs are certain verb-adjective combinations that express a state. Some of these combinations are actually little more than idioms. Many of these verbs have the force of become-blow (open), blush (red), break (loose), grow (worse), fall (ill), prove (wrong), stand (quiet), turn (pale), wax (eloquent).
The inking verbs are often subdivided by modern grammarians into be and all others. One of the most important differences is that, whereas the other linking verbs are followed mostly by predicate adjectives, be may be followed by many types of complements:

Adjective                               He is handsome.
Noun                                      He is a handsome boy.
Adverb                                   The man is here. (usually place)
Prepositional phrase           Mary is in the house. (Some of the prepositional phrases after be are idiomatic:
                                                We are of the same opinion; that is out of the question.)
Noun clause                          We are what we eat.
Infinitive phrase                   The problem is to find the right house.
Gerund phrase                     The problem is finding the right house.

In addition to differing from other linking verbs in the type of complements it takes, be also differs from all other verbs with respect to the position

1 Linking verbs are also called copulative verbs.
2 Verbs of perception may also be non-linking; they may indicate action and take an object- She is tasting the soup now.

of adverbs used with it, and with respect to its manner of forming questions and negatives. For this reason some grammarians separate be still further from other verbs and place it in a special category all by itself.

Transitive or Intransitive Verbs

A transitive verb takes a direct object (He is reading a book); an intransitive verb does not require an object (He is walking in the park). Only transitive verbs may be used in the passive voice (The book was returned by him quickly). All linking verbs are intransitive.
Transitive verbs may take more than one object:

Indirect object and direct object He gave his wife a present.
Direct object and objective complement They elected Mr. Smith president.

Many verbs may be used either transitively (He was writing a letter) or intransitively (He was writing at the library). Other verbs are transitive only and must be followed by an object-have, like, need, owe, remember.
Some intransitive verbs have developed transitive uses, especially in causative sense:

He always walks his dog at night (=causes his dog to walk).
The railroad runs additional trains during holidays (=causes additional trains to be run).

A few intransitive verbs are used transitively with cognate objects―run a race, dream a strange dream, live a good life.
Other intransitive verbs have different forms for transitive use.

                                Intransitive            Transitive
                                lie                            lay                           The book is lying on the table.
                                                                                                He laid the book on the table.
                                rise                         raise                       The sun rises in the east.
                                                                                                The student raised his hand.
                                sit                            set                           Please sit down.
                                                                                                She set the chair in the corner.

Some transitive verbs may be used intransitively to express a passive idea. Their subjects usually denote things rather than persons.

                                The books sold out (=were sold out) in a week.
                                The bread baked (=was baked) too long.
                                Such houses rent (=are rented) easily.

Many verb-preposition combinations may be regarded as transitive, since they can be used in the passive.

Active He looked up all the new words.
Passive All the new words were looked up (by him).

A small class of verbs, called middle verbs, are transitive in that they take a formal object, but intransitive in that they cannot be used in the passive voice-among them are cost, have, last, resemble, weigh.

Bob resembles his father.
This book costs $8.00.

The expressions after verb like cost and weigh may also be considered as adverbial expressions of quantity rather than as direct objects. (They are sometime called adverbial objects).

Reflexive Verbs

A reflexive verb requires one of the compounds with -self (reflexive pro-noun) as its object ―express oneself, wash oneself, pride oneself, avail oneself. Some verbs may be used with or without the reflexive pronoun object-He washed (himself) and dressed (himself) quickly. Reflexive verbs often have a non-reflexive use also, and can take objects that do not refer back to the subject―She washed the child and then dressed him quickly.

Classified by Form of Verb

Auxiliary or Lexical Verbs

                Two or more words may be joined together into a single verb phrase that functions as the full verb of the predicate. The first part of the verb phrase is the auxiliary (or auxiliaries), and the second part is the lexical verb (will be, arriving). The lexical verb³ carries the chief burden of semantic content. The auxiliary verb acts as a “helping” verb to the lexical verb by adding either (1) a structural element that marks differences in tense, voice, mood and aspect, or that signals questions and negatives; or (2) a semantic coloring such as ability, possibility or necessity (modal auxiliary).
                Some verbs used as auxiliaries may also occur independently―be, have, do. Other verbs function chiefly as auxiliaries and must be used with a lexical verb―shall, will⁴, can⁴, must, may, should, would, could, might.
                Auxiliaries combine with lexical verbs that are in simple (unchanged) form (will open)⁵, in -ing form (is opening), or in -ed form (was opened). The number of auxiliaries used with a lexical verb varies. A lexical verb may have

                ³The lexical verb is often called the main verb, but, in order to avoid confusion, we are reserving the term main verb for the verb in the main clause. Other names for lexical verb are notional verb, principal verb, meaningful verb.
                ⁴ In special senses, will and can also function as independent verbs with regular forms.
                ⁵ The unchanged form of the verb is also called the verb stem.

no auxiliaries (he opens, he opened), one auxiliary (he will open), two auxiliaries (he has been opening), or three auxiliaries (he may have been opening). Agreement with the subject occurs in the first auxiliary only. Only be, have, do, the verbs that may be used independently, can indicate person and number.

Finite or Non-Finite Verbs

                The Form for these verbs is determined by the function which the verb has in a sentence. A finite verb is a lexical verb with or without auxiliaries that acts as the full verb in the predicate. It is limited by all the grammatical properties a verb may have―person, number, tense, voice, etc.
                Non-finite (or infinite) verbs are incomplete verb forms that function as other parts of speech than verbs. They consist of the infinitive forms (to + the simple form of the verb) and the participial –ing or –ed forms. Thus, in the boy talking to the teacher is my brother, talking is a participle used as an adjective to modify boy. In He likes talking to the teacher, talking is a noun (a gerund) used as the object of likes. The non-finite forms, which are also called verbals, are not limited by person or number, but they have voice and some tense.
                Another kind of classification of verbs by form may be made in terms of compound semantic units. Such compounds may consist of two words joined together into one, or of two separate parts.

Two Words Joined into One

ADVERB + VERB. Ill-treat, dry-clean, cold-shoulder. Many of these verbs are hyphenated, whereas theirs noun equivalents are written as two separate words (ill treatment, dry cleaning, the cold shoulder).

NOUN + VERB. Hamstring, waterproof. Some of these compounds may represent “back formations” which have been coined by dropping an –er agent-denoting suffix—sleep-walk (from the original sleep-walker), sun-bathe (from the original sun-bather), baby-sit (from the original baby-sitter).

Two Separate Words
Functioning as One Vocabulary Unit

Such a verb is composed of a verb plus a prepositional form—give up, look over, drop in, find out. English makes great use of such two-part verbs for expanding the vocabulary.

FUNCTION OF VERBS

The verb functions as the grammatical center for the predication about the subject. As we have seen, it may be a grammatical center expressing mere linkage, or it may be the strongest predicating word in the central core of the sentence. The verb is so basic that other functions (subjects, object, complement) are determined in relation to it.

POSITION OF VERBS

The verb is used after a subject, or before an object or complement. The verb appears before the subject in most questions, and in sentences or clauses that begin with certain types of negative adverbs.

GRAMMATICAL FORM OF VERBS

                The grammatical form of verbs is usually discussed in connection with tense. The description of verb forms differs according to the way the term tense is interpreted. The most common interpretation of tense is a semantic one; each tense roughly indicates a kind of time. On the basis of this interpretation by meaning, some grammarians present a three-tense system—present, past and future. Most grammarians, however, give six-tense system, which includes these three plus three perfect tenses—the present perfect, past perfect and future perfect—each of which expresses time in relation to a particular point in the present, past or future respectively. The different tenses are signaled by verb endings or by auxiliary verbs.
                A second interpretation of tense is based on the form of the verb alone. According to this interpretation, there are only two tenses—a present and a past—each of which is marked by different forms in the lexical verb itself or in the auxiliary used with it. The semantics component of time is only secondary to the structural form. Many modern grammarians favor this two-tense system based on form alone.
                In this book we have chosen to work with the six-tense time system because it is the one most commonly found in English textbooks for non-native speakers and is therefore most familiar to them. We also believe it offers the most practical approach for learning the verb forms of English. However, we will also devote some attention to the two-tense formal system because of the additional insights it gives into the working of the English language.
                The forms given below for these six tenses are the finite forms for the full verb in the predicate. Additional finite forms are constructed with the auxiliary do, and with modal auxiliaries such as can, may, must.
                The tense forms that consist of one part only are usually labeled simple. Note that there are only two such forms—the simple present and the simple past.⁹ All the other tense forms are verb phrases containing one or more auxiliaries.

⁹ In some older grammars, the term simple merely distinguished the non progressive forms of the six tenses from the progressive forms.

DEFINITION OF ADVERB

The traditional deﬁnition of an adverb usually deﬁnes adverbs as words that gener-ally end in –ly and that describe verbs. However, there are many other adverbs that do not end in –ly and that describe adjectives or other adverbs. The adverb class is sometimes called the “trash can” class because grammar-ians have traditionally placed many words that ﬁt nowhere else into this category. Adverbs can describe just about any part of a sentence or clause. Consequently, there are many subclasses of the adverb class, upon which not all grammarians agree. Adverbs that take the derivational –ly ending comprise the largest subclass of adverbs. These adverbs are the easiest to identify and understand. These –ly adverbs are generally considered prototypical adverbs. Since these adverbs generally modify verbs, they have strong lexical meaning. They are often referred to as descriptive or manner adverbs because they answer the question “how” or “in what manner” the verb of the sentence does something

Many of these –ly adverbs are derived from adjectives:¹

Adjective + ly → Adverb
sudden                                 Suddenly
soft                        Softly
beautiful              beautifully
gracious               graciously
frequent              frequently

Unlike nouns and adjectives, the position of these adverbs is ﬂexible. Manner (–ly) adverbs can occur in initial or ﬁnal sentence position, or before or after the verb. In verb phrases, these adverbs can occur between the auxiliary verb (helping verb) and the main verb.

Comparison of Adverbs
There are three degrees of comparison in adverbs – the Positive, the Comparative, and the Superlative. The adverbs form their comparatives and superlatives using –er and –est , and more and most. Adverbs that end in –ly use the words more and most to form their comparatives and superlatives.

The one-syllable adverbs use ‘-er’ in the comparative form, and ‘-est’ in the superlative form.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
early	earlier	earliest
fast	faster	fastest
hard	harder	hardest
high	higher	highest
late	later	latest
loud	louder	loudest
near	nearer	nearest
soon	sooner	soonest

Adverbs which end in ‘-ly’ or have three or more syllables each form the comparative with ‘more’ and the superlative with ‘most’.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
angrily	more angrily	most angrily
brightly	more brightly	most brightly
dimly	more dimly	most dimly
freely	more freely	most freely
gladly	more gladly	most gladly
heavily	more heavily	most heavily
loudly	more loudly	most loudly
quietly	more quietly	most quietly
sweetly	more sweetly	most sweetly
terribly	more terribly	most terribly

Some adverbs form the comparative and the superlative irregularly.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
badly	worse (than)	worst (the)
far	farther	farthest
far	further	furthest
little	less	least
much/many	more	most

Positions of an Adverb
An adverb that modifies an adjective ("quite sad") or another adverb ("very carelessly") appears immediately in front of the word it modifies. An adverb that modifies a verb is generally more flexible: it may appear before or after the verb it modifies ("softly sang" or "sang softly"), or it may appear at the beginning of the sentence ("Softly she sang to the baby"). The position of the adverb may have an effect on the meaning of the sentence.

Functions of an Adverb
Adverbs typically add information about time (rarely, frequently, tomorrow), manner (slowly, quickly, willingly), or place (here, there, everywhere) in addition to a wide range of other meanings.

Forming Adverbs
Adverbs are formed from nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Most adverbs are formed from adjectives in the following ways:

by adding –ly or –ally to the end of an adjective (quick –quickly, heroic –heroically),

by adding –ly after removing the last –e from an adjective (comfortable–comfortably, possible–possibly), or by dropping the last y from an adjective and replacing it with –ily (easy–easily, happy–happily).

Adverbs are also formed from other parts of speech such as noun, adjective, verb, and also from present participle (frighteningly) and past participle (hurriedly).

Conjunctive Adverbs
You can use a conjunctive adverb to join two clauses together. Some of the most common conjunctive adverbs are "also," "consequently," "finally," "furthermore," "hence," "however," "incidentally," "indeed," "instead," "likewise," "meanwhile," "nevertheless," "next," "nonetheless," "otherwise," "still," "then," "therefore," and "thus." A conjunctive adverb is not strong enough to join two independent clauses without the aid of a semicolon.

The highlighted words in the following sentences are conjunctive adverbs:

The government has cut university budgets; consequently, class sizes have been increased.

He did not have all the ingredients the recipe called for; therefore, he decided to make something else.

The report recommended several changes to the ways the corporation accounted for donations; furthermore, it suggested that a new auditor be appointed immediately.

The crowd waited patiently for three hours; finally, the doors to the stadium were opened.

Batman and Robin fruitlessly searched the building; indeed, the Joker had escaped through a secret door in the basement.

KINDS OF ADVERB
There are different kinds of adverbs expressing different meaning. The following are some of the common ones.

Adverb of Place
An adverb of place tells us where something is done or happens. We use it after the verb, object or at the end of a sentence. Adverbs of place include words such as above, below, here, outside, over there, there, under, upstairs.

Adverbs of Manner
Adverbs of manner are adjectives used to describe how an action, or verb, happens. Most adverbs of manner end in –ly such as badly, happily, sadly, slowly, quickly, and others that include well, hard, fast, etc. For example, one might say 'she wrote badly.' The word 'badly' is an adjective that modifies the verb 'wrote.' Another example is 'He sang loudly.' Here, 'loudly' is an adjective to show how he sang. Adverbs of manners generally come after the verb in a sentence.

Adverbs of Frequency
An adverb of frequency tells us how often something is done or happens. Words used as adverbs of frequency include again, almost, always, ever, frequently, generally, hardly ever, nearly, nearly always, never, occasionally, often, rarely, seldom, sometimes, twice, usually, and weekly.

Adverbs of Time
An adverb of time tells us when something is done or happens. We use it at the beginning or at the end of a sentence. We use it as a form of emphasis when we place it at the beginning. Adverbs of time include afterwards, already, always, immediately, last month, now, soon, then, and yesterday.

Adverb of Degree or Quantity
An adverb of degree tells us the level or extent that something is done or happens. Words of adverb of degree are almost, much, nearly, quite, really, so, too, very, etc.

Adverbs of Affirmation or Negation
Adverbs of affirmation are those adverbs that are used to indicate that a statement is true or that in some other way to affirm it. They can be used within sentences, often as a way of adding emphasis, but they are often used alone as the answer to a question. Some examples of adverb affirmations are certainly, clearly sure, very, really, obviously, yes. eg. Clearly, she doesn't have any political experience.

Adverbs of Reason or Purpose

These adverbs answer the question ‘why’. For examples are therefore, hence, thus, consequently etc.

He did not work hard, therefore, he failed. Consequently he refused to come.

Adverbs of Number

These adverbs answer the question ‘in what order’.
Examples are: firstly, secondly, lastly, once, never, twice etc.

Adverbs of Conjunction
These Adverbs are used to connect ideas or clauses, they are used to show consequence or effect or the relation between the two clauses. To use these Adverbs to conjugate two clauses you need to use a semicolon (;) to connect them.

Positions of Adverbs
Adverbs should come as near as possible to the verbs they qualify. This is because the meaning of a sentence can change with the change in the position of the adverb.

Compare:

Only he lent me five cents. (= He and nobody else lent me five cents.)
He only lent me five cents. (= He only lent me the money, he didn’t do anything else.)
He lent me only five cents. (= He didn’t lend me more than five cents.)
He lent only me five cents. (i.e. to nobody else)

You will have noticed that the meaning of the sentence changes considerably with the change in the position of the adverb only.

Most adverbs, however, can be placed in different positions with no significant change in meaning. There are, nevertheless, some rules regarding the position of adverbs.

Negative adverbs
Negative adverbs include adverbs with an explicit negative meaning, such as never, not and nowhere, as well as adverbs with an implied negative meaning, such as hardly, scarcely and seldom.

Double negatives
In modern English, there is a rule that a clause containing one negative word expresses a negative meaning, but a clause containing two negative words expressed an affirmative meaning. In the case of a clause with two negative words, it is considered that one of these words negates the other, so that an affirmative meaning results. The presence of two negative words in a clause is referred to as a double negative.

In some dialects of English, clauses containing two negative words may be used to express a negative meaning.
e.g. I'm not saying nothing about it.
He never told nobody the secret.
However, this use of the double negative is considered to be grammatically incorrect in standard English.

For each of the above examples, the double negative can be eliminated by omitting or altering one of the negative words. Thus, the meaning of the first example could be correctly expressed by either of the following sentences:
I'm saying nothing about it. or
I'm not saying anything about it.

Similarly, the meaning of the second example could be correctly expressed by either of the following sentences:
He told nobody the secret. or
He never told anybody the secret.

Relative Adverbs
Adjectival clauses are sometimes introduced by what are called the relative adverbs: where, when, and why. Although the entire clause is adjectival and will modify a noun, the relative word itself fulfills an adverbial function (modifying a verb within its own clause).