Adverbs

What is an adverb?
An adverb (bijwoord) is a word or multiple words that tell information about a verb (werkwoord), adjective (bijvoegelijknaamwoord) or other adverbs (bijwoord).
They modify verbs to inform us how, when and where it is done, adjectives to inform us to which degree and adverbs to which extent.
(Swan, 2016)


Adverbs ending on -ily -ly.
Adverbs (bijwoord) are most of the time easy to recognize in a sentence because of the ending.

For example: He is very loud. In this sentence loud is an adjective, because it tells something about the the noun 'He.'
But in this sentence: He talks very loudly. 'Loudly' tells something about the verb (werkwoord) and that makes it an adverb (bijwoord). In most sentences if a word ends in -ily or -ly it is an adverb. (Swan, 2016)

 


How to find an adverb.

To find an adverb, you have to dissect (ontleden) a sentence.
When dissecting a sentence you can come across a lot of different kind of word classes (woord soorten). But for this lesson we are sticking with these:

Table 1:
Word classes with examples.

Word class

Translation

Example

Pronoun

Voornaamwoord

I, You, He, She, It, They

Noun

Zelfstandignaamwoord

Katy, Car, Road, Dog

Verb

Werkwoord

Walk, Run, Think, Be

Adverb

Bijwoord

Really, Very, Fast, Happily

Adjective

Bijvoeglijknaamwoord

Red, Fast, High

Opmerking. Aangepast overgenomen uit An Introduction to English Grammer (p. 36) door G. Nelson en S. Greenbaum G, 2016, Oxon: Routledge. Copyright 2016, Gerald Nelson and Sidney Greenbaum.