Adverbs  

Activity 10.8: Forms of Adverbs

Exercise A: Find the adverbs in the following sentences.

Find each adverb by clicking on the word. Correct selections will turn green, incorrect selections will turn red.

Exercise B: Find the derivational suffixes for the adverbs in the following sentences.

Type the suffix into the box, click on the "Check Answer" button to see if you are right.

Exercise C: Try to see if you can add –er to the adverbs in the following sentences to finish the comparison in the second sentence.  Then try using more.  What are the results?

Click on the blank, then again on each selection as the forms rotate. Select the grammarical form of the adverb. Click on the Check button to assess your selected answer

Adverb Forms and Use

Since so many adverbs are derived from adjectives, and adjectives fall into the two categories of gradable and nongradable, the question arises of whether adverbs follow the same categories or not.  The adverbs of manner are generally gradable, which makes sense since these are the adverbs that are derived from adjectives.  A few of the adverbs of frequency and measure seem to be gradable, too.  The other adverbs are not gradable. 

According to standard usage, all gradable adverbs should use more, but in common grammatical usage, the comparative adjective form is often used.  There are only two single syllable adverbs that can take the –er form in both standard and grammatical usage: fast, and hard.  Two others are increasingly categorized with fast and hard as single word adverbs taking the –er and –est forms, but aren’t universally accepted as such in standard usage: loud, and slow.  There may be others, as well, but they are even less common.

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