New answers tagged adverbs
0
To this US English speaker, will do! sounds idiomatic, and sure will! is good too, but will sure do! does not.
I don't know if there's a good grammatical reason for that; it is just that we say some of those things and do not say others.
0
"carefully" is an adverb modifying "drive". The surrounding words "more ... than I do" modifies "carefully". The entire phrase remains an adverbial phrase; the modification doesn't change the part of speech. You can apply it to a noun and get a noun phrase ("My wife takes more care than I do"), an adjective ...
6
Welcome to English Language Learners.
In this sentence, the phrase, 'more carefully than I do', is an adverbial phrase. It can't be considered an adverbial clause because it doesn't have its own subject and verb. It can't be considered an adverbial complement because it's not necessary for the meaning of the verb, 'to drive'.
An example of an adverbial ...
3
Maybe you're mixing up two things here: There's the adjective "novel", which has a similar meaning to "new". On the other hand, there's the noun "novel", which means a type of narrative fiction. In connection to the noun "novel", there's the adjective "novelistical".
"novelly" is the adverb form of ...
0
“I wandered in the desert thirsty” means “I, a thirsty person, wandered in the desert.”
“I thirstily wandered in the desert” means “I wandered in a thirsty fashion in the desert.”
Both are grammatically correct, but as I do not know how anyone would “wander in a thirsty fashion”, I am guessing you mean the first.
0
"Against Texas" qualifies "lawsuit", so it acts as an adjective. The same is true of "over [the/a] law".
(Note that headlines often omit words that are required in actual sentences.)
As to why the phrases are adjectival, it's because they modify the noun "lawsuit".
1
Some of the usages listed, such as shake the bottle well, cannot be changed to better or best. 'Shake it well' means 'shake it until any sediment at the bottom is mixed in' - we might say "Shake it a bit more", but not "Shake it better".
0
activity can be countable (when it describes a specific event or entertainment) or uncountable (when it means doing something). One could argue that religious activity could therefore be countable or uncountable.
Are we required to attend any religious activity weekly?
The word attend suggests that we talking about events, so activity should really be ...
0
It's redundant. I don't see that it adds meaning, except maybe as emphasis. The word "while" already establishes a contrast between what the two groups do, and that contrast is the subject of the sentence:
Merriam-Webster while
2a : when on the other hand :WHEREAS
easy for an expert, while it is dangerous for a novice
Lexico while
Whereas (...
4
It's a colloquial, idiomatic usage. The commas you suggest are unnecessary because "so" is acting as just an intensifier; the meaning is unchanged from "You did do it."
The same construction often uses "too."
"I didn't eat your sandwich."
"You did too eat it!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
0
A sentence adverb is a kind of disjunct, but a conjunctive adverb is something different.
The third page you linked describes three types of adverbs: adjuncts, disjuncts, and conjuncts. It goes on to say that a conjunctive adverb is a special type of conjunct. The job of a conjunctive adverb is to link two clauses or sentences together and show how they are ...
-2
It is not possible to use "no more" with periods of time in formal, semi-formal and informal speech as well as writing? In this relation we would use, if needed, the alternative
any more or anymore (us)
anymore adverb;(also any more):C.E.D.(used esp. in negative statements) any longer:
The original form in the question was
"We are no ...
2
With "flat" as a noun meaning an apartment, your book is correct. You can't say "It was a bit small apartment."
However, you can use those qualifiers as predicate adjectives, for example,
"The apartment was a bit small." or "The apartment was a little small."
The vocabulary book is correct in saying that the other ...
7
When we say "verb the object adjective", we mean "make the object adjective by verbing". "Boil the kettle dry" means "make the kettle dry by boiling", just as "paint the door red" means "make the door red by painting".
When we use an adverb, like "verb the object adverb", we mean "do ...
4
Instead of your "We are no more in the 20th century" I would suggest we should use the sentence
"We are not in the 20th century any more" (the 20th century has ended)
as an alternative to
"We are no longer in the 20th century" (we are not in this time period)
Why we may be tempted to use " more" in the way you ...
25
no more can have the same the meaning as no longer and, up until 1840, it was more widely used. Here is a typical example:
He instantly determined to be no more a slave. - The works of Hannah More, Hannah More, 1804
We are no more in the 20th century.
This sentence is therefore grammatically correct, though dated. There is a further problem: no more is ...
0
For me these are both idiomatic. I would tend to say "to America" rather than just "America", although informally your version is OK.
The two sentences mean similar things, but the second one is less precise.
For example, suppose you are going to Europe on Monday 6th, and then to America on Thursday 16th. It would be inaccurate to say &...
1
"Later" is a comparative term, like 'hotter', 'darker', etc.
When we say "I'll call you later", it means at some point later than now. But if you bring a specific time into it as in your example of "a week", it doesn't make any sense unless you give a starting point to count that week from.
For example, you could say "I'll ...
0
Not really. I'd say something like "I'll call you in a week" or "I'll call you later".
0
No, it can't. The sentence is unusual, but one can imagine situations where one could say that. In any case, comically is an adverb that shows the manner in which you changed the books. So I would understand that yes the result was comic, but not as an attribute of the books themselves: it is their new arrangement or sequence that is comic.
0
No. They are not in conflict.
The main clause in your second example is positive. You can grammatically say
am very aware that …
or
am very much aware
but
am much aware
is so rare as to be unidiomatic. See
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=am+very+aware%2C+am+very+much+aware%2C+am+much+aware&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=...
1
These are not contradictory. The rule given by word reference is "In positive sentences, don't use much without very"
Very much is an idiom - think of it as a separate word with its own usage rules. There are places where you can use very much where much alone would be ungrammatical.
I'm not much good at tennis. is a sentence with negative polarity,...
0
In the first example, “in her own way” is an adverbial phrase (also called an “adjunct”) that modifies the verb. The “very much” modifies the adjunct by intensifying it.
So I do not think you can say that “very much” modifies the verb.
She does things very much
is not idiomatic.
I think it is more descriptive to say that “very much in her own way” as a ...
0
To ask how far it is we say, "How far is it from X to Y?" or "How far is Y from X?"
To ask if they are far apart we say, "Are X and Y far apart?" or "Is it far from X to Y?"
We say a place is "a long way from here", or "a long way away from here".
If it isn't a long way, we say "it's not far ...
0
Adverbial use:
How far away is your destination?
How far is it from X to Y?
Adjective:
I dream of faraway places.
He sat at the far end of the row.
https://wordtype.org/of/far
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/far
-1
Adjectives answer or enable the question "which?" or "what?"
Adverbs answer or enable the question "how?"
Sometimes the concern of "how" is the actual execution of a verb (tightly turn the car around the curve--qualify process of turning), and sometimes it's the desired end state (shut the door tight--desired end state ...
2
I have never seen or heard 'I was completely fool." I believe it is simply wrong. "Fool" is rarely used as an adjective. Merriam Webster gives an example: "barking its fool head off". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fool But I think that is an unusual case.
If I wanted an adjective I would say "foolhardy" or &...
1
Is the expression “a bored pencil tapped the school desk" grammatically incorrect? (personification)
That distinction is artificial, downright wrong. Consider The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot:
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
N.B "ragged". Perhaps your instructor should correct Eliot?
Top 50 recent answers are included