# Style/grammar question about adverbs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530 "2009-02-26T17:40:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530/21 "2009-02-27T20:32:35Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That’s easy to assert, but incorrect. It is either ungrammatical or contains an elided verb. Those are the only two choices. False dichotomy. Adverbs are more flexible than your arbitrarily narrow definition allows. You can’t make sense of anything if you define “adverb” by what it _generally_ does and then summarily exclude its other less common functions as automatically incorrect or misinterpreted. Every single grammatical structure and category functions in ways that we wouldn’t otherwise expect, and if you start disallowing forms based on a priori opinions of what you think an adverb _should be_, instead of the way _it is_, then you’re left with a totally off-kilter perception of the language that does not conform to the facts of how people speak every single day. Good example (same source): The past tense is usually used to convey information about things that have already happened. But not always. The past tense form can be used to convey information about the present, and even the future. “If I had a million dollars, I’d buy a house” uses the past tense form of the verb to convey information about the present. “I thought he was coming next week” uses the past tense to convey expectations about next week. We don’t have to say “I thought he will come next week”. This is a very basic grammatical point. From **A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar** : > [@](#): > > There is a construction where we find an adverb modifying a noun, as in “Industrial action resulted in the withdrawal _indefinitely_ of the vehicular ferry service” or “A shortage of timber _internationally_ led to a steep rise in prices”. The construction is subject to severe constraints; most importantly, adverbial modifiers of nouns are restricted to **post-head** positions–compare “the _indefinite_ withdrawal of the vehicular ferry service”, where the pre-head modifier is required to be an adjective. There are also constraints on the kind of adverb permitted. Manner adverbs, for example, are normally excluded, so that we have “his _angry_ reaction” but not \*“his reaction _angrily_”. The first two example sentences did ultimately rely on the presence of adjectives. This particular form does not. It’s rare, but adverbs can in fact modify nouns. [That is not the exclusive province of adjectives.](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001965.html) > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Funny you should say that because I started wondering why it mattered at all, as long as everyone agrees the sentence is a grammatically valid construction. Past that it sort of turns into angels dancing on the head of a pin. Fair question. It directly relates to the link I posted above (written by one of the two authors of that book). Adverbs can modify nouns. Nouns can modify nouns, too. And it’s mostly adverbs that modify adjectives, but nouns can also modify adjectives. These word categories are important–they tell us the _characteristic_ function of their members–but they are not the end-all be-all of figuring out how the pieces fit together. It’s much more complex than that, with each part of speech being able to fulfill many different functions, and quite often those functions overlap. The whole thing adds up to a weird, complex whole. Categorical statements like “adverbs don’t modify nouns” aren’t just inaccurate. They’re oversimplifications that muddle things up. ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530/22 "2009-03-01T06:32:31Z")
FWIW, I think the example debated above would be better written as “An international shortage led to a rise in prices.” ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530/23 "2009-03-01T07:17:27Z")
> [@](#): > > **Hellesta** : The sentence is not ungrammatical, and there is no elided verb. > [@](#): > > **Diogenes the Cynic** : That’s easy to assert, but incorrect. It is either ungrammatical or contains an elided verb. **Diogenes** , you are mistaken. The sentence is grammatically correct. And I find no elided verb. Unless you can provide a cite that backs up your thinking, you are spinning your wheels. Retired language arts teacher (with quickly fading mind) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530/24 "2009-03-01T07:48:01Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > **Diogenes** , you are mistaken. The sentence is grammatically correct. And I find no elided verb. Unless you can provide a cite that backs up your thinking, you are spinning your wheels. > > Retired language arts teacher (with quickly fading mind) Unless you can find a way to explain how “An internationally shortage led to a rise in prices” makes sense, then you can’t say “internationally” modifies “shortage” in that sentence. The only way for that sentence to make semantic and grammatical sense is to assume that it modifies an elided, existential verb (“A shortage [which existed] internationally…”). My cite is the grammatical definition of an adverb. Come to think of it, I suppose it could be an elided participle (“a shortage [existing] internationally…”), but it’s definitely not the noun. As I said, you can’t stake a claim that it modifies the noun unless you can defend “internationally shortage” as a sensible construction. You also provide no citations of your own except assertions. The fact that you were an English teacher is all well and good, but not actually a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530/25 "2009-03-01T10:21:27Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > My cite is the grammatical definition of an adverb. So is mine. The difference is that your definition is the loose lay definition, the cause of many contradictions and mistakes, while mine comes from the technical jargon of full-length grammars written by professional linguists. This sort of definitional problem happens quite a lot, with lay readers falling into equivocations and other mistakes because they haven’t studied the topic thoroughly. It’s like the definition of [“escape velocity”](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/escape%20velocity). Often, people want to believe that when we’re talking about escape velocity, we have to specify a direction (more specifically than “away from the planet”), because velocity is a vector and vectors have both magnitude and direction. But that’s not true. It’s only a magnitude, and yet you won’t find “escape speed” in a dictionary. This type of misunderstanding can lead to confusion when people adhere to imprecise or inaccurate lay definitions instead of refining their definitions in face of the facts, as experts are forced to do. There’s a similar situation here. Adverbs generally do modify verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or other words other than nouns. The key word there is _generally_. Generally is not always. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Unless you can find a way to explain how “An internationally shortage led to a rise in prices” makes sense, then you can’t say “internationally” modifies “shortage” in that sentence. The only way for that sentence to make semantic and grammatical sense is to assume that it modifies an elided, existential verb (“A shortage [which existed] internationally…”). The syntactic requirement you posit as necessary does not actually exist in English. Modifiers that come after nouns do not also have to come before their nouns. You just made that up because you haven’t thought about this in any real depth. Presents _galore_ were waiting under the tree for the children. If I wanted to follow your silly rule here, I could deny that _galore_ was modifying _presents_. After all, it doesn’t work in front of the noun. “Galore presents” isn’t grammatical. When we want accurate definitions and rules, we need to devise our grammar from the facts of usage, instead of making up rules when it’s convenient to support what we already want to believe. And the fact is that sometimes there are modifiers of nouns that come after the noun instead of in front. And it is even _mandatory_ for some modifiers of nouns to come after the noun instead of in front. Such is the case with “galore” and “aplenty”, and such is also the case with “internationally” and the other adverbs that are capable of being used in the highly restricted, but grammatically correct, structure I cited above. “Internationally” does not have to come in front of the noun to modify the noun. Nor does “indefinitely” in the sentence “Industrial action resulted in the withdrawal indefinitely of the vehicular ferry service”. They modify their nouns just fine where they are. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/style-grammar-question-about-adverbs/487530.md?page=1)