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English Grammar Essay In my essay I will investigate the issue of using adjectives and adverbs in English grammar. This issue is of great importance for me and requires my attention because I confuse the forms of adjectives and adverbs very often in my everyday speech. Thus, first, I will define the meaning of the main terms: an adjective, an adverb; and the terms surrounding them: a noun, a pronoun, and a verb. Then I will state the rule of using adjectives and adverbs in the English language and provide this with the necessary examples and my comments of possible mistakes. I will also set the historical background of my issue and show the processes of formation of adverbs in throughout the development of the English language. In conclusion I will illustrate the cases of correct usage of the grammar forms by the example of the literary language in The Blood of Strangers - Stories from Emergency Medicine by Frank Huyler.
In the first place, adjectives are defined as words that modify or limit nouns and pronouns. As a rule, adjectives answer such questions as: what kind? which one? how many? whose? While an adverb is a word that can modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.
Adverbs answer the following questions: why? how? when? where? how often? under what condition?
in what manner? yes or no? For instance, descriptive adjectives are: a swift ride, a happy child, a yellow barn; limiting adjectives are: this tree, seven boxes, some cakes. The examples of the usage of adverbs will be taken from English Simplified, 10 th edition, which provides with the following explanations: A horse ran swiftly. [the adverb swiftly is modifying the verb ran] The horse was very swift. [the adverb very is modifying the adjective swift] The horse ran very swiftly. [the adverb very is modifying the adverb swiftly] Also, most adverbs are formed by adding ly to the adjective: delight delightfully, smooth smoothly. But, it is very important that an ly adding does not always signal an adverb. For example, such words as friendly, womanly, saintly belong to adjectives, not adverbs.
In addition, some adverbs have the same forms as their corresponding adjectives: fast, late, early. And some adverbs preserved two forms and both of them are correct in modern English: slow and slowly, quick and quickly. All these points described above contribute to the problem of confusing the forms of adjectives and adverbs in a sentence. Certainly, according to English Simplified, the best way to tell an adjective from an adverb is to determine the word that is modified [ 1 ]: You walk too fast. [walk how? fast (adverb) ].
To practise the rule given in English Simplified and to avoid confusion of adverbs and adjectives in the future, I will discuss the common cases where mistakes may occur: Stephen is a quietly man. Here the usage of the adverb quietly is incorrect because an adverb can not modify a noun (man). The correct sentence should be: Stephen is a quiet man. She talks careless about your future wife. In this sentence the word careless is an adjective and thus it can not modify a verb (talks). The correct sentence should be: She talks carelessly about your future wife.
They tried to be helpfully. Here, it should be borne in mind, that an adjective follows a form of the verb to be when it modifies the noun before the verb. Thus, the correct variant should say: They tried to be helpful. The ocean air smells freshly.
The rule that refers to this sentence states: an adjective always follows a sense verb, or a verb of appearance feel, taste, look, appear, sound, and seem when it modifies the noun before the verb. In this way, this sentence should be: The ocean air smells fresh. I feel badly. This sentence refers to the cases when the words bad and badly are confused. If a person wants to describe how he feels he should use bad. Saying that one feels badly would sound similar to Your team plays badly.
I did good on my exam. Here the confusion occurs because well and good can function both as adverbs and as adjectives. As a rule, good is used as an adjective, though it follows be-verbs and sense-verbs. So, a person can look good, smell good, feel good etc. Good functions as an adverb mainly in colloquial speech, for instance: He showed me how good I was doing.
At the same time, when well is used as an adjective, it has the following meaning: in good health, not sick. In other cases, besides this health-related sense, well performs functions of an adverb. So, the correct variant of the sentence should be: I did well on my exam. On the whole, adverbs are confused with adjectives because historically adverbs were formed form adjectives.
That is why now, in contemporary language, adverbs still possess features similar to adjectives. In Old English adjectives were formed by means of adding some old suffixes to nouns and adjectives. Later, these suffixes developed into like, and in the period of Chaucer they acquired the form of ly. For example, there were found such adverbs in Chaucer's texts as - clearly, absolutely.
All in all, the problem of right choice between adverbs and adjectives in English Grammar has a historical background. As it was mentioned above, adverbs developed from adjectives and evidently preserved some similarity. Thus, in modern English we have merely the same words: bad and badly, fresh and freshly, swift and swiftly. I think that some of these words may be easily confused because, in spite of their grammatical difference, they do not have different lexical meanings. In this way, instinctively, people are apt to substitute adjectives for adverbs and visa versa. So, I think that the only way of improving the usage of adjectives and adverbs lies through training, Grammar exercises and reading literature that shows perfect literary language and teaches the correct forms of Grammar.
In conclusion, I would like to demonstrate the correct usage of adjectives and adverbs by the example of a literary source - The Blood of Strangers - Stories from Emergency Medicine by Frank Huyler. "When did the pain start?" Early this morning. [ 2 ] (the adverb early modifies the verb start). "Do you have any heart problems?" No. [ 2 ] (the adjective heart modifies the noun problems). "Do you have any other medical problems, like diabetes or high blood pressure?" He shook his head. [ 2 ] (The adjective medical modifies the noun problems; the adjective high modifies the adjective blood). "Describe the pain for me. Is it sharp, or dull?" [ 2 ] (the adjectives sharp, dull follow the verb to be and modify the noun). Vague, in his chest, going up into his neck and down his left arm. [ 2 ] (the adjectives vague and left modify the nouns pain and arm) He felt sick to his stomach. [ 2 ] (the adjective sick modifies the verb felt) He looked up at me, breathing more easily now on the oxygen, his lips growing pink again. [ 2 ] (the adverb more modifies another adverb easily) He ran, slowly at first, then headlong, toward the trucks. [ 2 ] (the adverb slowly modifies the verb ran) Bibliography: 1) Blanche Ellsworth, Emeritus John A. Higgins.
English Simplified, Longman, 2004 2) Frank Huyler, The Blood of Strangers-Stories from Emergency Medicine, Henry Holt & Company, New York, USA, 2000.
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