Parts of Speech
Part Two
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We have already covered parts of speech such as the noun, pronoun and the verb in our first lesson. In this second lesson, we will cover the adjective and the adverb. Let's get started!
See Parts of Speech 1 and 3 here.
Adjectives
An adjective provides a description of a noun or pronoun. An adjective usually comes before the noun or pronoun. An adjective uses identifying, quantifying and descriptive words.
For Example:
The wet,
yellow rainboots are beside my
sneakers.
It was a dark and
stormy night.
There are ninety-nine
red balloons floating in the sky.
You can usually classify adjectives in
four different ways:
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Attributive adjectives These are part of a noun phrase which usually precede the noun they modify. For example, "happy" is an attributive adjective of "happy children". Predicative adjectives These adjectives are linked to another noun or pronoun they modify. For example "sad" is a predicate in "They are sad" of "that made me sad". Absolute adjectives These adjective usually modify the subject of a sentence, of whatever noun/pronoun they are closest to. For example, "The girl, sad at her dog's death, started to cry." Here, "sad" is an absolutely adjective. Substantive adjectives These adjectives act almost like nouns. In the sentence, "I watched two movies. I preferred the happy to the sad." Here, "happy" is short-form for "the happy one". |
Other examples of phrases with substantive adjectives:
"Out with the old, in with the new", "the meek shall inherit the earth".
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Adverbs What comes to mind when you hear the word "adverb"? The word "verb" can be found in it, so you know that it can modify a verb. An adverb can also modify an adjective, another adverb, phrase or clause. One really easy way to identify an adverb is that it usually ends in the suffix "-ly". But there are a lot of adverbs which don't end in -ly as well. An adverb indicates manner, time, place, cause or degree. It can usually answer the questions "how", "when", "where" and "to what degree".! |
| Type | Adverb |
| Manner - how | Alex drives quite slowly. |
| Time - when | Let's have the wedding here! |
| Place - where | My friend Sheldon lives nearby. |
| Cause - why | I cried because my boyfriend broke up with me. |
| Degree - to what intensity | I nearly fainted when I learned I had won the lottery. |
Some more examples of adverbs
| Type | Adverb examples |
| Manner - how | easily, quickly, slowly, drowsily, honestly, gracefully, greedily, calmly |
| Time - when | early, late, yesterday, tomorrow, daily, yearly, eventually, never |
| Place - where | near, far |
| Cause - why | because, on account of, even though, so that, in order to |
| Degree - to what intensity | nearly, almost, barely, fairly, quite, just, too, enough, hardly, scarcely, completely, very, extremely, rather |
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Flat adverbs You can usually make an adjective (like happy) into an adverb by adding -ly (happily). Beward of flat adverbs, though - they don't change their form. In fact, they are identical as either adjectives or adverbs. |
Examples of flat
adverbs:
Early, late, hard, fast, long, high, low, deep,
near.
Make sure you know the difference between an adjective and an adverb. It can be confusing since the same words are used - it all depends on how the word is used in the specific sentence.
Question 1: What is the word describing - a noun or a verb? If it's a noun, then chances are it's an adjective.
Question 2: What question is the word answering?
"Early"
The early bus arrives at 7
AM.
In this sentence, early describes the noun "train". Therefore, it is an adjective.
The train arrived early today.
In this sentence, early is an adverb because is describes when the train arrived. It is describing the verb "to arrive", therefore it is an adverb.
"Hard"
Vince Carter threw a hard pass
to his teammate.
Hard is describing the noun - therefore it is an
adjective.
Here, "hard" is describing the manner in which the ball was thrown. It is describing the verb "threw" in the sentence - therefore "hard" in this sentence is an adverb.
Vince Carter speedily passed the ball to his teammate.
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