Difference between revisions of "Adverb"
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DavidB4-bot (talk | contribs) (→top: Spelling/Grammar Check, typos fixed: latin → Latin) |
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*''cheerily'' from ''cheery'' (note the orthographic change in the original adjective) | *''cheerily'' from ''cheery'' (note the orthographic change in the original adjective) | ||
| − | The suffix -ly, or the similar German, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian suffixes, derive from the Germanic word ''lich'', meaning "body", "shape". "Quickly" could therefore be interpreted as meaning "with a quick body". By comparison, the Romance suffixes -mente, -ment, or -mense come from the Latin | + | The suffix -ly, or the similar German, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian suffixes, derive from the Germanic word ''lich'', meaning "body", "shape". "Quickly" could therefore be interpreted as meaning "with a quick body". By comparison, the Romance suffixes -mente, -ment, or -mense come from the Latin ''mente,'' which is the ablative [[grammatical case|case]] of ''mens,'' meaning "mind." That is, the adverb came from a construction that literally meant "with an [adjective] mind." |
==References== | ==References== | ||
<references/> | <references/> | ||
Latest revision as of 20:28, April 15, 2019
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a phrase, or a clause.[1] In English, many adverbs are derived from adjectives by the suffix -ly, as seen in the following examples:
- quickly from quick
- cheerily from cheery (note the orthographic change in the original adjective)
The suffix -ly, or the similar German, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian suffixes, derive from the Germanic word lich, meaning "body", "shape". "Quickly" could therefore be interpreted as meaning "with a quick body". By comparison, the Romance suffixes -mente, -ment, or -mense come from the Latin mente, which is the ablative case of mens, meaning "mind." That is, the adverb came from a construction that literally meant "with an [adjective] mind."