ABSTRACT
The term 'adverb' encompasses many lexical items and constructions that may not immediately be identified as an adverb by the student of any given language. The term is first and foremost applied to words (adjectival in origin) that modify verbs (and adjectives), as opposed to adjectives, which modify nouns: 'He spoke quietly', 'We wrote clearly'. An entire range of forms is added to this basic adverbial group, forms which in some way or other describe or set the stage for an action; this includes expressions of time (when?), place (where?), manner (how?), and the like. Each of these sets of forms is listed in the following sections. The use of the adverb is described in brief (with examples) where this is not immediately clear; two particular sets of forms that receive more in-depth treatment are those of (i) time expressions (excluding formations involving numerals such as dates and years, which are treated in Chapter 5), and (ii) modal and impersonal expressions; the latter are described here because many of them are centred upon adverbs or adverb-like elements.
