Adverb

(This page is about adverbs, a word class. The course in Word Classes forms part of the Grammar course in AWE. You may choose to follow it in a structured way by following the links. Each item can also be accessed separately.)

• In Primary School, you may have heard adverbs called ‘describing words’, like adjectives. Adverbs were used to describe verbs, where adjectives describe nouns. (Note the etymology: adverb.)
• In Secondary School, adverbs were ‘words used to modify a verb’. (Modify = say more about the way in which a verb is ‘done’, or carried out, or ‘happens’). At this stage, you may have been taught that an adjective qualifies a noun. ('Qualify' here means "To express some quality belonging to (a noun)" (OED)
• In more modern grammar, word classes are defined as much by the grammatical contexts in which they are found. Adverbs are used in several ways. If you need to go a little deeper into defining this class of words, click Adverb in modern grammar.

Like adjectives, adverbs can be inflected - that is, they can change their shape, particularly the ending, for different grammatical usages. In the case of adverbs, the inflection is for comparison. In English, adverbs (and adjectivess) have three degrees of comparison: the positive, for example big; the comparative (bigger); and the superlative (biggest).