In grammar an adverbial is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial phrase or an adverbial clause) which modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. The word adverbial is also used as an adjective, meaning 'having the same function as an adverb'. Look at the examples below: For the surname, see Grammer. ... An adverb is not a part of speech. ... Look up phrase in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In grammar, a clause is a word or group of words ordinarily consisting of a subject and a predicate, although in some languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly. ... In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterized in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ...

Danny speaks fluently. (telling us more about the verb)

Adverbials operate at sentence level as sentence elements, as in the example below: Sentence elements are the groups of words that combine together to comprise the ‘building units’ of a well-formed sentence. ...

Lorna ate breakfast yesterday morning. (SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + ADVERBIAL)

The form of adverbials

In English, adverbials most commonly take the form of adverbs, adverb phrases, temporal noun phrases or prepositional phrases. Many types of adverbials (for instance reason and condition) are often expressed by clauses). In linguistics, a noun phrase is a phrase whose Head is a noun. ... A prepositional phrase (PP) is a linguistic term for a phrase whose head is a preposition. ... A clause is a group of words consisting of a subject (often just a single noun) and a predicate (sometimes just a single verb). ...

James answered immediately. (adverb)

James answered in English. (prepositional phrase)

James answered this morning. (noun phrase)

James answered in English because he had a foreign visitor. (adverbial clause)

Types of adverbials which form sentence elements

Adverbials are typically divided into four classes:

adverbial complements (i.e. obligatory adverbial): these are adverbials that render a sentence ungrammatical and meaningless if removed, e.g. An adverbial complement is an adverbial that is obligatorily subcategorized for by a verb, such that if removed, it will yield an ungrammatical sentence: She put the cheese back *She put the cheese Adverbial complements of caused motion verbs like put are adverbial complements. ...

John put the flowers in a vase.

adjuncts: these are part of the core meaning of the sentence, but if omitted still leave a meaningful sentence, e.g. The following is about the linguistics term; adjunct is also a conjunct disjunct adverbial Categories: Linguistics stubs ...

John helped me with my homework.

conjuncts: these link two sentences together.

John helped so. I was, therefore, able to do my homework.

disjuncts: these make comments on the meaning of the rest of the sentence. In the field of astrology the term disjunct, or quincunx is an aspect made when two planets are 150 degrees, or five signs apart. ...

Surprisingly, he passed all of his exams.

Distinguishing an adverbial from an adjunct

All adjuncts are adverbials, but some adverbials are not adjuncts.

• If the removal of an adverbial does not leave a well-formed sentence, then it is not an adjunct
• If the adverbial modifies within a sentence element, and is not a sentence element in its own right, it is not an adjunct.
• If the adverbial is not grammatically tied to the sentence it is not an adjunct, e.g.

Mr Reninson, however, voted against the proposal. (adverbial conjunct not adjunct)

Other types of adverbials

Directional and locative particles

"In", "out", and other prepositions may be used adverbially to indicate direction or location:

• Superman flew in (directional)
• Are you in? (locative)
• The car drove out (directional)
• The ball is out (locative)

Negators

In some models of grammar negators such as "not" and "never" are considered adverbs and their function that of negating adverbial. In rhetoric, where the role of the interpreter is taken into consideration as a non-negligible factor, negation bears a much wider range of functions and meanings than it does in logic, where the interpretation of signs for negation is constrained by axioms to a few standard options, typically just...

Expletives

Often ignored, expletives may take up many adverbial syntactic functions. Pragmatically and semantically, they often serve as intensifiers, boosting the content of the clause they appear in. The word expletive is currently used in three senses: syntactic expletives, expletive attributives, and bad language. The word expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning to fill, via expletivus, filling out. It was introduced into English in the seventeenth century to refer to various kinds of padding -- the padding...

• What the hell are you talking about?
• I didn't bloody well do that!
• You're freaking lying!
• You bloody well know that smoking's not allowed here!
• He got sodding killed.

NEWTON WAS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See also

Look up adverbial in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.