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CHAPTER 9
Most single-word adverbs or adverbial phrases in academic text occur in the medial position in the sentence, rather than at the beginning or end (e.g., Measuring the temperature by_ hand and at uneven intervals proved to be...; It is often noted that air-born particles do not usually move in predictable patterns.). TELLING ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS APART Although most adverbs are marked by the suffix -ly, many are not. For example, adverbs without markers include: almost
now
seldom
today
already
often
sometimes
tomorrow
here
quite
then
yesterday
next
rather
there
yet
On the other hand, some adjectives have the -ly suffix: costly
likely/unlikely
sickly
ugly yearly
early
lively
silly
elderly
manly
shapely
friendly
lovely
womanly
Some words can have the functions of both adjectives and adverb without changes in their form: deep, early, fast, hard, hardly, high, late, long, low, near To determine whether a particular word is an adjective or an adverb, a simple technique can be used: If a particular word or phrase answers the questions where when, why, how, how often/long, this word/phrase is an adverb. For example, Every business must operate (how?) profitably to stay around (when/how long) for a while. With the exception of their occurrences as part of predicate following beand linking verbs, all adverbs and adjectives represent optional sentence elements (see also chap. 3).
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