Flat adverb

Last updated

In English grammar, a flat adverb, bare adverb, or simple adverb [1] is an adverb that has the same form as the corresponding adjective, [2] so it usually does not end in -ly, e.g. "drive slow", "drive fast", "dress smart", etc. The term includes words that naturally end in -ly in both forms, e.g. "drive friendly". Flat adverbs were once quite common but have been largely replaced by their -ly counterparts. In the 18th century, grammarians believed flat adverbs to be adjectives, and insisted that adverbs needed to end in -ly. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "It's these grammarians we have to thank for ... the sad lack of flat adverbs today". [3] There are now only a few flat adverbs, and some are widely thought of as incorrect. [4] Despite bare adverbs being grammatically correct and widely used by respected authors, they are often stigmatized. [5] There have even been public campaigns against street signs with the traditional text "go slow" and the innovative text "drive friendly." [1]

Contents

Bare adverbs that alternate with -ly forms

Use of the word thus has slowly declined since the 1800s. Thus usage over time.png
Use of the word thus has slowly declined since the 1800s.

For most bare adverbs, an alternative form exists ending in -ly (slowly). Sometimes the -ly form has a different meaning (hardly, nearly, cleanly, rightly, closely, lowly, shortly), and sometimes the -ly form is not used for certain meanings (sit tight, sleep tight). [3] [6] [7] The adverb seldom is a curious example. It dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, but starting in the 1960s the same word began appearing in English books as seldomly. It has been hypothesized that the decline in usage of seldom in English, combined with the 18th century insistence on adverbs ending in -ly, resulted in its occasionally used -ly form. [8] Similarly, usage of the word "thus" has fallen since 1800 – while usage of an -ly form, thusly, has spiked recently. [9]

Use of the word thusly grew over time. Notice the difference of scale with the previous graph. Despite the trend, the source still lists thus as roughly 10,000 times more frequent as thusly in 2000. Thusly.png
Use of the word thusly grew over time. Notice the difference of scale with the previous graph. Despite the trend, the source still lists thus as roughly 10,000 times more frequent as thusly in 2000.
Usage of first and firstly at the beginning of a sentence since 1800. Position at the beginning means they are likely both sentential adverbs. First vs firstly s1800.png
Usage of first and firstly at the beginning of a sentence since 1800. Position at the beginning means they are likely both sentential adverbs.

Numerical adjectives (first,second, last) rarely are used in an -ly form despite having a valid alternative. While words like firstly and lastly exist, their flat form is much more commonly used. Here, in contrast to other flat adverbs such as good ("they cook good"), the flat form is universally accepted in English as proper speech.

Bare adverbs that do not alternate

Some bare adverbs don't alternate; e.g. fast, straight, tough, far, low. In addition, the ending -ly is also found on some words that are both adverbs and adjectives (e.g. friendly) and some words that are only adjectives (e.g. lonely).

Nearly all irregular comparative adjectives in English can take on adverbial form and never use the -ly. Some examples are good, bad, little, much, and far – and their comparative forms (e.g. better and best).

My best number was the one I'd practiced least.

Which one hurt more?

Steel and coal companies were the ones worst affected by tariffs.

Analyses of bare adverbs

Flat adverbs work as intensifiers that modify specific words. Consider sentences containing real and really (* signifies ungrammaticality):

I really like the pie.

I real like the pie.*

Here, real becomes really to become an adverb to the verb like, while real cannot do the same and remain flat. According to data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, real was followed by a verb only 657 times. [10] For comparison, real was followed by an adjective 12,813 times, with good being the most common adjective collocated (1,584 times). [11] In this case, real can only modify adjectives.

This pie tastes really good.

This pie tastes real good. (informal)

This pie really tastes good. (meaning is changed)

This pie real tastes good.*

Alternatively, the flat adverb sure can only modify verbs. Citing data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, sure was followed by a verb 7,396 times, but it was rarely followed by an adjective at only 470 times. [12] Compare:

We sure had a great time.

We surely had a great time.

We had a sure great time.*

We had a surely great time. (meaning is changed)

This can possibly be explained by the differing uses of the suffix -ly, and another adverbial suffix, -e. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are two different uses of the suffix -ly: when the suffix transforms a word into an adjective (e.g. brotherly), and when it forms an adverb. [13] The suffix's origins are in Old English, coming from -lice, which is related to the German -lich. Due to its use in history, many verbs and adverbs have been formed from roots that are harder to recognize today (compare: verily as very+ly,only as one+ly, especially as especial+ly). Before -ly, -e was the most common adverbial suffix in Old English. The suffixes were not competing and could even be used interchangeably (rhyte – rhytlice are both 'rightly'). Examinations of texts from the time period show that the -e form was more common in poetry, while the -lice form was more common in prose. [14]

As English developed as a language, it began weakening its vowels, and as such the -e suffix gradually disappeared, making the adverbs bare. [15] Some words retained adverbial use without the -e, such as long, fast, or hard. The adverbs had dwindled in number but did not die out entirely. [14]

At this point in Old English, the adverbial system was still not as developed as it would become in later stages. Sentential adverbs were beginning to be developed and adverbs became used in more specific ways, and the vowel weakening -e in tandem with more easily expressed -ly forms caused -ly to become the dominant adverbial form. [14] Although there were no categorical changes between flat adverbs and the new adverbs, their use was generally limited. More and more adverbs took on this form for greater homogeneity among the class. John Earle wrote that a flat adverb was "simply a substantive or an adjective placed in the adverbial position." However, he found that flat adverbs are not suitable for many of the advanced uses that a modern adverb might be. [16] An example of a more advanced adverb would be the sentential naturally, as in naturally, we got along.

Acceptability over time

The term 'flat adverb' was coined in 1871 by John Earle, and even in that time they were viewed as "rustic and poetic" because they were "archaic". Flat adverbs were relatively common in English through the 18th century, although more so in the United States. Earle writes that the flat adverb was "all but universal with the illiterate". [16] One recorded example of their use is in letters by author Jane Austen. She used near, exceeding, and terrible as flat adverbs in one letter – and usage such as this was common in spoken discourse. [17]

Although grammarians stigmatized them, flat adverbs are found to be accepted by English speakers and their usage has grown over the past century. A survey carried out in the 1960s studied people's attitudes towards usage problems in English. The examples "you'd better go slow" (rather than slowly) and "he did it quicker than he'd ever done it before" (rather than more quickly) contained flat adverbs – and the latter was found to be acceptable by just 42% of respondents. [18] However, in a follow-up in the 2010s by the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, using the same examples from the 1960s survey and others containing flat adverbs, they found that acceptance of flat adverbs has become much more widespread in recent years. Quicker was found to have an acceptance rate of 75%, while "you'd better go slow" was universally accepted. [19]

Related Research Articles

A split infinitive is a grammatical construction in which an adverb or adverbial phrase separates the "to" and "infinitive" constituents of what was traditionally called the full infinitive, but is more commonly known in modern linguistics as the to-infinitive. In the history of English language aesthetics, the split infinitive was often deprecated, despite its prevalence in colloquial speech. The opening sequence of the Star Trek television series contains a well-known example, "to boldly go where no man has gone before", wherein the adverb boldly was said to split the full infinitive, to go. Multiple words may split a to-infinitive, such as: "The population is expected to more than double in the next ten years."

An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how, in what way, when, where,to what extent. This is called the adverbial function and may be performed by single words (adverbs) or by multi-word adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.

English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts.

A gerund is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable by an adverb and being able to take a direct object. The term "-ing form" is often used in English to refer to the gerund specifically. Traditional grammar makes a distinction within -ing forms between present participles and gerunds, a distinction that is not observed in such modern grammars as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language and The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.

In linguistics, a participle is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, participle has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a laughing face".

English compound Word composed of more than one free morpheme

A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components.

A limited number of Esperanto adverbs do not end with the regular adverbial ending -e. Many of them function as more than just adverbs, such as hodiaŭ "today" and ankoraŭ "yet" or "still". Others are part of the correlative system, and will not be repeated here.

In Latin grammar, a gerundive is a verb form that functions as a verbal adjective.

In linguistics, a disjunct is a type of adverbial adjunct that expresses information that is not considered essential to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the speaker's or writer's attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional content of the sentence, "expressing, for example, the speaker's degree of truthfulness or his manner of speaking."

In linguistics, an adverbial phrase ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Adverbial phrases can be divided into two types: complement adverbs and modifier adverbs. For example, in the sentence She sang very well, the expression very well is an adverbial phrase, as it modifies the verb to sing. More specifically, the adverbial phrase very well contains two adverbs, very and well: while well modifies the verb to convey information about the manner of singing, very is a degree modifier that conveys information about the degree to which the action of singing well was accomplished.

American and British English spelling differences Comparison between US and UK English spelling

Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.

A compound modifier is a compound of two or more attributive words: that is, two or more words that collectively modify a noun. Compound modifiers are grammatically equivalent to single-word modifiers, and can be used in combination with other modifiers.

French adverbs, like their English counterparts, are used to modify adjectives, other adverbs, and verbs or clauses. They do not display any inflection; that is, their form does not change to reflect their precise role, nor any characteristics of what they modify.

This article deals with Japanese equivalents of English adjectives.

<i>-ing</i> English language suffix

-ing is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words like morning and ceiling, and in names such as Browning.

Adverbial genitive Grammatical component

In grammar, an adverbial genitive is a noun declined in the genitive case that functions as an adverb.

In linguistic morphology, a transgressive is a special form of verb. It expresses a concurrently proceeding or following action. It is considered to be a kind of infinitive, or participle. It is often used in Balto-Slavic languages. Syntactically it functions as an adverbial.

English prepositions Prepositions in the English language

English prepositions are words – such as of, in, on, at, from, etc. – that belong to a closed lexical category in English. They function as the head of a prepositional phrase, and most characteristically license a noun phrase object. Semantically, they most typically denote relations in space and time. Morphologically, they are usually simple and do not inflect.

Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages that have it, the comparative construction expresses quality, quantity, or degree relative to some other comparator(s). The superlative construction expresses the greatest quality, quantity, or degree—i.e. relative to all other comparators.

English adverbs

English adverbs are words such as so, just, how, well, also, very, even, only, really, and why that head adverb phrases, and whose most typical members function as modifiers in verb phrases and clauses, along with adjective and adverb phrases. The category is highly heterogeneous, but a large number of the very typical members are derived from adjectives + the suffix -ly and modify any word, phrase or clause other than a noun. Adverbs form an open lexical category in English. They do not typically license or function as complements in other phrases. Semantically, they are again highly various, denoting manner, degree, duration, frequency, domain, modality, and much more.

References

  1. 1 2 O'Conner, P.T.; Kellerman, S. (2009). Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language. Random House Publishing Group. p. 30. ISBN   9781588368560.
  2. Garner's Modern American Usage, p. 897
  3. 1 2 "Drive Safe: In Praise of Flat Adverbs" with Emily Brewster, part of the "Ask the Editor" series at Merriam-Webster.com
  4. Merriam-Webster, Inc (1998). Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors. Merriam-Webster. p. 373. ISBN   9780877796220.
  5. When Adverbs Fall Flat, including list of the most common bare adverbs
  6. Working with Words: An Introduction to English Linguistics
  7. Flat Adverbs Are Flat-Out Useful
  8. Barber, Katherine (January 10, 2012). "Things seldom are what they seem". Wordlady.
  9. "Google Books Ngram Viewer". Google Books.
  10. "real + verb - Corpus of Contemporary American English". Corpus of Contemporary American English. 2018.
  11. "real + adjective - Corpus of Contemporary American English". Corpus of Contemporary American English. 2018.
  12. "sure + adjective - Corpus of Contemporary American English". Corpus of Contemporary American English. 2018.
  13. "-ly, suffix". Oxford English Dictionary. 2018.
  14. 1 2 3 Pittner, Karin; Elsner, Daniela; Barteld, Fabian (2015). Adverbs: Functional and diachronic aspects. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 140–142.
  15. Pounder, Amanda (2001). "Adverb marking in German and English: System and standardization". Diachronica. 18: 306–308. doi:10.1075/dia.18.2.05pou.
  16. 1 2 Earle, John (1871). The Philology of the English Tongue. Oxford University Press. pp. 361–365.
  17. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid (2013). Touching the Past: Studies in the historical sociolinguistics of ego-documents. John Benjamins Publishing Company. pp. 95–103.
  18. Mittens, W.H. (1970). Attitudes to English Usage: An Enquiry by the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Institute of Education English Research Group. London: Oxford University Press.
  19. Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid (2015). "Flat Adverbs: Acceptable Today?". English Today. 31 (3): 9–10. doi:10.1017/s0266078415000188.