Verbs and Adverbs

Verbs and Adverbs

Typically, verbs are used with adverbs. Unlike nouns, verbs and adverbs cannot be replaced by pronouns or another part of speech. However, we can create verb phrases and adverb phrases. 

• verb (word) = walk                                        | adverb (word) = quickly

• verb (phrase)= will walk                               | adverb (phrase) = very quickly

• They walk together every day.                 |           They walk quickly. 

• They will walk to the store tomorrow.    |           They will walk very quickly.

Sources:

General information about types of verbs adapted from https://natureofwriting.com/courses/parts-of-speech/lessons/verbs-main-types/topic/introduction-to-verbs/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

General information about types of adverbs adapted from https://natureofwriting.com/courses/parts-of-speech/lessons/adverbs/topic/introduction-to-adverbs/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Videos: TEFL and TESOL Courses, ITTT
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Verbs

When we look at verbs in more detail, we can easily see how they are very different from the other parts of speech. We already learned that verbs describe an action or a state. Also, verbs are the only part of speech in Standard English that show past, future, or present tense. This is something that may be different from other languages where verbs do not change to show past, present, or future. Let's see what other information we can add to all this to learn more about verbs.

In Standard English, the verb is the main part of every sentence and shows what the subject does or what state the subject is in. When this happens, the verbs are called main or lexical verbs. Some other verbs allow us to show when something happened or help us to create questions and negative statements. These verbs are called helping or auxiliary verbs. The three helping verbs are be, do, and have. These three verbs are special because they can be used as main verbs and helping verbs. Another special type of auxiliary verbs are modal verbs, which add more meaning to the main verb. 

• Robert walks to work. → The action verb "walks" tells us what Robert does.

• He is a teacher.    → The state or linking verb "is" describes Robert's state of being a teacher.

• Does Robert walk to work every day? → The helping verb "do" helps us create a question.

• Robert is walking right now. → The helping verb "be" helps us show when the action happens.

• Robert can teach online classes. → The modal verb "can" describes an ability.

As we see in the examples at the top of this page, when we use helping or modal verbs with main verbs, we create verb phrases.

Adverbs

When we look at adverbs in more detail, we can easily see how they have a special relationship with verbs. We already learned that adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. 

When adverbs describe verbs, they can appear before or after the verb. However, when describing adjectives or other adverbs, they appear before these parts of speech.

• They always go to work together. (adverb before verb)    | They walk fast. (adverb after verb)

• This is a very useful arrangement. (adverb before adjective) They walk quite fast. (adverb before adverb)

Adverbs are usually easy to identify because they commonly end in -ly. They form by adding -ly to an adjective. These adverbs are called regular adverbs.

• creative → creatively               | nice → nicely

• happy → happily                      | warm → warmly

Sometimes, however, adverbs do not follow the -ly rule. These adverbs are called irregular adverbs. For example, some adverbs and adjectives look exactly the same. Although they look the same, it is easy to know the difference because adjectives describe nouns while adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, or adverbs.

• The early bird gets the worm. (adjective)

• He always arrives early. (adverb)

• Those daily emails are too long. (adjective)

• She writes emails daily. (adverb)

Also, some adjectives look completely different when they change to an adverb form. Here is a list of the most common irregular adverbs:

good → well

fast → fast

far → far

hard → hard (not hardly, as this word has a different meaning)

late → late

straight → straight

Let's see what we can add to that to learn more about adverbs.