9. Adverbs

9.1 Form

In standard use, only a limited number of adverbs are formally identical to the corresponding adjectives. [1] In contrast, in the material for the present study, a number of adverbs which in StE end in -ly occur in a form identical to that of the corresponding adjective. This corroborates Hughes & Trudgill (1979: 19), who report that in most non-standard dialects, adverbs have the same form as the corresponding adjectives (e.g. He ran slow, She spoke very clever and They done it very nice). [2] They further point out that, in the case of some adverbs, forms without -ly are also found in colloquial StE, although some speakers might not accept expressions such as Come quick! as StE. Earlier evidence comes from Wright (EDG 1905: §444): “In all the dialects it is common to use the adjectival form for the adverbial, as in you might easy fall.” For East Anglian dialects, a similar observation is made by Forby (1970 [1830]: 132, 134; e.g. to behave rude, to speak plain, I fell down swack (‘violently’)). In the present material, adverbs of manner (cf. the examples given by Hughes & Trudgill, Wright and Forby, above) and adverbs used as intensifiers are most typically identical to the corresponding adjectives. Adverbs of these types are discussed in 9.3.1 and 9.3.2.

9.2 Comparison

The structures used for comparison of adverbs are, in the main, similar to that of adjectives. Thus, equality is expressed by as ... as and inequality by so ... as (or as ... as) preceded by a negative, as shown by examples 9.1 (a-d).

As in adjective comparisons, the first as is often not expressed, and redundant what is often used after the second as and than. As may also be used as the first item in cases in which a negative precedes, although some grammarians recommend so as the first item. Thus, Cambridgeshire dialect speakers follow the principle that as … as expresses equality and not as/not so … as denies the existence of equality (cf., e.g., Curme 1968:184). [3] (For adjectives, see 8.1.)

Proportional comparatives occur in cases such as see that’s all depend how much roadwork they done = more roadwork they done = quicker they wanted shoeing = that’s the trouble (West Wickham CC). In StE, the adverb the (a survival of the OE instrumental case of the demonstrative pronoun (Mustanoja 1960: 282), although we no longer feel its original force; Curme 1968: 144) precedes the comparative. [4] As can be seen from the above examples, the is not always expressed in Cambridgeshire dialect speech.

The absolute superlative follows StE usage, as in I tried my hardest to sh- set (i.e. plant) them 'tatoes (Willingham ES).

Due to the absence of the -ly suffix, inflectional comparison is used in cases such as the following:

(See also the example of the proportional comparative, above.)

9.3 Functions and Meanings

The words that are traditionally grouped together as adverbs serve a number of different functions. [5] Adverbs are generally used to modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs; they may also modify whole clauses or sentences rather than a single word or group of words. In the material for the present study, sentential adverbs are extremely rare. [6] The few that are attested usually have the -ly suffix, as in we don’t have them (i.e. winters) as cold as we di- di- did. Er = definitely (Waterbeach BB) and The fish naturally went down the funnel (Willingham SS).

Classified according to their meaning, the most important categories of adverbs are: (a) adverbs of manner, (b) adverbs of degree and quantity, (c) adverbs of place, and (d) adverbs of time and frequency (cf. Curme 1968: 26). The following discussion focuses, in particular, on adverbs of manner and adverbs of degree and quantity, although adverbs of place and adverbs of time and frequency are also briefly touched upon.

9.3.1 Adverbs of manner

As stated in 9.1, adverbs of manner are usually identical to the corresponding adjective. The most common of these, i.e. bad, easy, quick, regular and slow, are illustrated by examples 9.3 (a-d). Other suffixless forms are attested occasionally, as in example 9.3 (e).

The use of forms identical to the corresponding adjectives as adverbs of manner was common in earlier stages of the language (see, e.g., Mustanoja 1960: 314-315). [7] In particular, easy was earlier used in the comparative and superlative but as an adverb it is now considered colloquial or dialectal (OED easy, B adv.). Examples of the form slow in earlier usage include such as But oh, me thinkes, how slow This old Moon wanes (1590 Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and We drove very slow for the last two stages on the road (1848 Thackeray Vanity Fair) (examples taken from OED slow, adv.). The examples in the OED suggest that the form regular (‘regularly’, ‘steadily’; ‘thoroughly’) was frequent during the period 1710 to 1885 (OED regular, adv.). Similarly, quick seems to have occurred frequently and for a longer period than regular, with examples ranging in date from 1290 to 1874 (OED quick, C adv. = quickly). Bad is regarded as a quasi-adverb in the OED.

The use of adjectival form for adverbs of manner has survived in dialectal language, and is reported for various dialects in Britain. The usage was reported for East Anglia in general by Forby (1970 [1830]: 132, 134) at the beginning of the 19th century (for examples, see 9.1). Claxton (1968: 10) reports it for the Suffolk dialect of the 20th century, with illustrations such as You can easy walk t’ Ipsidge, Th’ owd hoss fare t’ trot hully quick and You don’t dew so bad. Additional evidence for Cambridgeshire comes from Beauchamp’s (1977: 9) study of Chatteris (a small town some 25 miles north of Cambridge) dialect, with examples such as The bus fares are gone up terrible and He was hurt pretty bad.

The adverbs of manner without the -ly suffix that are generally reported for various dialects are bad, easy, quick, regular and slow, all of which also occur in Cambridgeshire dialect speech, as exemplified in 9.3 (a-d). [8] In addition to these common suffixless adverb forms (and such occasional forms as beautiful instead of beautifully, mentioned above), there are cases such as the following:

The expression burn bright also occurs in colloquial English, while the more formal language requires the form brightly. The form bright (OED bright. adv., “from the adj. with adverbial -e through the loss of which it was c. 1400 levelled with the adj.”) also occurred in earlier stages of the language, as in The moone shines bright (1596 Shakespeare Merchant of Venice). Similarly, the form rough occurs in informal speech, typically in the expression sleep rough (i.e. ‘spend the night in the open, without a proper shelter’), which was also used in older English (OED rough. adv., f. on adj.; to lie (or sleep) rough). Finally, the form sharp also occurs in less formal speech; it is used in expressions such as hit me sharp on the brow (i.e. in a sharp manner). In older English, the adverb sharp (OED sharp. adv., in a sharp manner, sharply in various senses) was used, for example, by Chaucer in For whan a pipe is blowen sharpe (c. 1384 The House of Fame; example taken from the OED). [9]

9.3.2 Adverbs of degree and quantity as intensifiers

Many adverbs of degree and quantity function as intensifiers. [10] Intensifiers are scaling devices which have either an intensifying (amplifiers) or a weakening effect (downtoners) on the meaning of the word they modify. [11] The following discussion focuses on the intensifiers all, bloody, fairly, hardly, near(ly), pretty, proper, real(ly), (ever) so, too and very, although other intensifiers, such as tidy and rather, and the use of like as an intensifier are briefly touched upon. [12] These intensifiers are discussed mainly as modifiers of adjectives and other adverbs, the contexts in which they typically occur. However, intensifying adverbs can also modify indefinite pronouns, cardinal numbers, nouns and verbs, and these usages will also be briefly dealt with. For the use of here and there as intensifiers, see 9.3.3.

In the present material, bloody, real(ly), so (often preceded by ever) and too are the most frequent adverbs which intensify the meaning of the adjective (amplifiers), as in the following examples.

In the present material, bloody modifies adjectives and adverbs. As an intensifier, bloody (‘very’, ‘exceedingly’; ‘abominably’, ‘desperately’) was in general colloquial use from the Restoration (1660) to circa 1730 (OED bloody, adv. B2). Examples of earlier usage include: He is bloody passionate. I saw that in the Hall (1748 Richardson Pamela; example taken from the OED).

In the interviews carried out for the present study, the form real (‘very’, ‘extremely’) is frequently used to modify adjectives. “In early use, the adverb real was properly an adjective qualifying the phrase (‘good turn’, etc.) which follows, and only at a later period apprehended as an adverb qualifying an adjective (‘good’, etc.)” (OED real, B adv.), as illustrated in The reallest good turn that can be done (1658) and It looks real nice (1885 G. Allen Babylon; both examples taken from the OED). [13] The form really occurs in a few instances as a modifier of an adjective, usually in the speech of the youngest informant, e.g., When things got really, really bad (Willingham SS) (note the repetition of really). However, the form really is frequently used as a modifier of verbs, as in I really don’t know (Waterbeach BB).

Ever so (‘immensely’, ‘extremely’, ‘vastly’) is used in positive contexts as a modifier of adjectives, but ever so is also common as a modifier of adverbs, as in we’d got ever so much ploughing done (Rampton TR).

Too (‘excessively’, ‘extremely’, ‘very’) modifies adjectives and adverbs, in both positive and negative contexts. The usage in the latter context is exemplified in They (i.e. mangel wurzels) ain’t got too much nourishment in (Harston AS).

The intensifier very, which is the most frequently used modifier of adjectives and adverbs in present-day StE (Quirk et al. 1979: 276), is rare in the interviews recorded for the present study, although it occurs occasionally, especially in the speech of the youngest and the female informants, as in They were very poor (Willingham SS) and It weren’t very much (Willingham ET). Very was not a very popular intensifier in the 15th century. In the second half of the 16th century, however, it overshadowed the other popular adjective and adverb intensifiers, i.e. full, right, and much (Mustanoja 1960: 327). [14] Nonetheless, it was not used by everybody even in the 17th century (Strang 1970: 138). Even up to the present day, it might not have been a very popular intensifier among speakers of lower social classes. [15]

In the material for the present study, the most frequent downtoners are fairly, near(ly) and pretty. The following examples illustrate their uses.

Fairly (‘rather’, ‘moderately’, ‘tolerably’) intensifies adjectives and other adverbs. The older suffixless intensifying adverb fair (OED fair, adv.) is not attested in the present material. The variant with -ly suffix, fairly, has been in use (together with fair) since the mid-fourteenth century (Mustanoja 1960: 318).

The adverb nearly (‘almost’) and its suffixless variant near modify adjectives and other one-word adverbs, but also adverbial expressions of time, place and quantity, as well as cardinal numerals, verbs and pronouns. Near(ly) is almost categorically used in cases in which the adverb almost could also be used; the latter adverb is very rare. Near(ly) is often intensified with very, as shown in examples 9.6 (b-c) and example 9.7 (c), or accompanied by the adverb about, as shown in example 9.7 (b).

Near (ly) usually follows adjectives, adverbial expressions of time or place or cardinal numbers. As shown in example 9.7 (d), near(ly) also follows indefinite pronouns; the context here reveals that the meaning is ‘nearly all could milk’, and the position of nearly may be due to the speaker’s desire for greater emphasis. Another possibility is that the speaker added the adverb as an ‘afterthought’. The suffixless form near was in general use in earlier periods of the language (OED near, adv. 1, adv. 2).

Pretty (‘fairly’, ‘in a fair or moderate degree’, ‘rather’) is used to intensify adjectives and adverbs, as in:

Pretty has been used as an intensifier since at least the early 17th century (Strang 1970: 138). [16]

The intensifier proper (‘very’, ‘quite’, ‘genuinely’) is used to modify adjectives, as in:

There are numerous examples of the use of proper in the OED, dating from circa 1450 to 1898 (proper, B adv, = properly). In present-day English, this suffixless form is regarded as dialectal, vulgar or slang (ibid.). In the material for the present study, this intensifier is not very common. Similarly, the adverb tidy is not frequent but occurs as an intensifier of adjectives in cases such as

in which tidy good is used in the sense ‘rather good’, corresponding to the colloquial expression ‘pretty good’.

The intensifier rather is not common in the material for the present study. Instead, informants use fairly, pretty, proper and tidy, as exemplified above.

The adverb hardly (‘almost not’, ‘not quite’, ‘only just’) occurs in cases such as [It] don’t look hardly fair today (Waterbeach BB). As can be seen from the example, hardly is accompanied with a verb in the negative. This superfluous negative was common in older English (OED hardly, adv.), and the usage survives in dialects. (See ‘multiple negation’ in 5.4.) According to Jespersen (1970: 454), the combination NEGATIVE + HARDLY occurs when the negative word is felt to be too absolute and is therefore softened down by the addition of hardly.

Examples of all (‘entirely’, ‘wholly’, ‘without admixture’) as an intensifier include:

In ME, all was frequently used to modify adjectives and adverbs (Mustanoja 1960: 316). Nowadays all occurs in this function mainly in some stereotyped phrases, such as all right, a phrase which is also found in the present material, e.g. in I get on all right (Newton JF). For all as an adverb of place, see 9.3.3.

The adverb like is an intensifier when it modifies adverbs, as in:

Examples of this usage given by Forby (1970: 195) include the use of like as a modifier of adjectives and adverbials, as in She feared to be angry like and She was in a passion like. [17]

9.3.3 Adverbs of place

The following discussion focuses on the uses of all, anywheres, here and there.

All (‘everywhere’) is frequently found with adverbial expressions of place, as in 9.13 (a), and anywheres occurs in cases such as 9.13 (b).

According to Curme (1931: 142), anywheres is the old adverbial genitive form. In present-day StE the form is usually anywhere.

Here and there are frequently used as intensifiers with adverbial expressions of place, as in:

Cf. the discussion of here and there in 7.3.2.

9.3.4 Adverbs of time and frequency

The adverb afore, which, according to the OED (afore, adv.), is still common in dialects, is attested in cases such as:

The suffixless form rare occurs in cases such as:

The form rarely is not attested in the material for the present study.

There is variation between since and sin. The form sin (‘thereafter’, ‘afterwards’) (OED sin, adv.), which is a contracted form of sithen, and hence in later use frequently written sin’, is exemplified in and [I] have been here ever sin (Bassingbourn BR).

Both sometimes and sometime occur in the present material, as illustrated by the example and that- that was a rum job when you'd got a = young one in there sometimes. Sometime I’d get a = a kicker (Castle Camps JH). The form sometime may be a survival from earlier periods. According to the OED (sometime, adv. = sometimes), this form was common in the 16th and 17th centuries, but is now rare.

Notes

[1] For a discussion, see, e.g., Quirk et al. (1985: 406-408).

[2] Adverbs that are identical in form to the corresponding adjectives are widely reported. According to Edwards & Weltens (1985: 113), “adverbs without -ly are indeed more common in most dialects, e.g. He writes real quick; He went on terrible.”

The use of such adverbs is so widespread that it can be regarded as a characteristic of British social dialects rather than of regional dialects (Coupland 1988: 35). This view is shared by Kortmann (2002: 198-199). In Kortmann (2004: 1099), this characteristic is considered from a world-wide perspective: in almost all non-standard varieties of English around the world, “adverbs have the same form as adjectives”, and “this is a pervasive and exceptionless property for manner adverbs (he came quick)”. Similarly, Kortmann & Schneider’s (2006) general survey of varieties of English gives an overall picture of the spread of both adverbs of manner (he treated her wrong) and adverbs used as degree modifiers (that’s real good) in 46 regional varieties of English around the world. In 29 of these varieties, suffixless de-adjectival adverbs are pervasive; in ten others they are very frequent. The overall proportion of the zero forms of degree modifiers is similarly high: they predominate in 27 out of the 46 varieties, and are very frequent in another eight.

Of interest from the point of view of the present study is Kortmann & Schneider’s (2006) survey showing that East Anglian English is among the varieties that favour zero forms in both cases. (The other varieties they list are colloquial AmE, urban African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Newfoundland English, Northern British English, Irish English, Welsh English, New Zealand English and a number of other regional varieties.) By contrast, those with the lowest scores for both kinds include South-Western British English (and South-Eastern British English, Australian English, White African English and Singapore English). Examination of the data from the south-western sub-corpora of the Helsinki Corpus of British English Dialects (HD), i.e. Devon and Somerset, corroborates this overall picture of less frequent use of these forms in these areas compared with the HD East Anglian data, i.e. the Cambridgeshire and Suffolk sub-corpora data. There is, however, great variation among the various adverbs in the south-western sub-corpora. For example, certain common adverbs of manner such as quickly have the zero form, whereas real(ly) occurs in most cases with the ly-suffixed form. More detailed comparison of the forms of adverbs in the data from the south-west and East Anglia is left for future research.

[3] In more recent grammars, the use of not as ... as is considered equally acceptable, or, as Quirk et al. (1985: 458) write: “Comparison to the same degree is expressed by as (or sometimes so) ... as” (emphasis added).

[4] Quirk et al. (1985: 1111) discuss adverbial clauses of proportion. These express a proportionality or equivalence of tendency or degree between two situations. They are introduced by the fronted correlative the ... the followed by comparative forms.

[5] In traditional English grammar, adverbs are considered a part of speech, like nouns and adjectives. However, the words that are traditionally grouped together as adverbs serve a number of different functions. The same adverb may also have more than one function and, depending on the context, more than one meaning. For example, the adverb naturally is a verb-modifying adverb meaning “in a natural manner” in the example She did it naturally and a sentential adverb meaning “of course” in Naturally, she did it. Because of this great multifunctionality, some grammarians have removed certain types of items from the adverb class entirely and established several additional classes rather than retained these as subsets within a single adverb class (Quirk et al. 1985: 438). Morphologically, we can distinguish three types of adverbs: (a) simple, e.g. just, well; (b) compound, e.g. somehow, therefore; and (c) derivational, e.g. oddly, interestingly, clockwise (Quirk et al. 1985: 438).

[6] A similar observation is made by Tagliamonte et al. (2005b: 103), who investigated four morphosyntactic features, among them zero adverbs (i.e. adverbs identical with the corresponding adjectives), in the data sets of six different dialects around the British Isles (in Maryport, Cumbria; in Cumnock, south-west Scotland; in Cullybackey, Northern Ireland; in Tiverton, Devon; in Wheatley Hill, County Durham, north-east England; and in Buckie, north-east coast of Scotland). Their examples include: Oh, aye ’cos they look like that e? Honest (MPT: P) (emphasis in the original). Due to the general infrequency and “erratic distribution”, Tagliamonte et al. excluded “sentence adverbs” from their examination.

[7] See also Nevalainen (1994, 1997, 2008) and Nevalainen & Rissanen (2002).

[8] Bad, easy, quick, regular and slow are the forms commonly reported in various studies. Quick, in particular, is generally recorded among the most typical. For example, Cheshire et al. (1993: 72-73) note that “the widespread reporting of adverbial quick (item 86: I like pasta. It cooks really quick) was not unexpected” in their Survey of British Dialect Grammar. The forms quick, slow and quiet, as well as good, are reported by Edwards (1993a: 231-232) for south-eastern dialects in her grammar of southern British English, and exemplified with Bring it here quick; You’re doing that a bit too slow; She was talking very quiet; He done good. Tagliamonte et al.’s (2005b: 102-107) analysis of adverbs in data sets from six different dialects around the British Isles (cf. endnote 6) reveals that the three “main manner adverbs are quickly, regularly, easily”. These adverbs all occur both in their -ly and zero forms, the latter forms being exemplified in Oh aye, they go regular. You’re lucky, Morag’s daughters go regular. (CMK: g) and Oh I could’ve had a job quite easy with him (CMK: C; emphasis in the original).

[9] Quirk et al. (1985: 406) consider the form sharp to be non-standard or very familiar English in cases such as He spoke to John sharp. However, they point out that coordination is a factor which helps to make the adjective form acceptable. They exemplify this with speak loud and clear, which they consider to be fully acceptable in StE, as opposed to speak clear, which they consider non-standard.

[10] Adverbs are not the only words that function as intensifiers. In his work Degree Words (1972), Bolinger expands the discussion of intensifiers from the use of adverbs to qualify adjectives and adverbs to the use of these and other parts of speech to modify nouns and verbs as well. For instance, an intensifying adjective may qualify a noun, as in It was utter heaven (ibid. 1972: 151).

[11] For the terms amplifier and downtoner, and the most common amplifiers and downtoners modifying adjectives and adverbs, see, e.g., Quirk et al. (1985: 445-448).

[12] In their material representing the standard varieties of AmE and BrE, Biber et al. (1999: 564) find that “conversation uses a wider range of common intensifiers than academic prose”. In non-standard or dialectal conversation, the number of intensifiers may be more limited than in standard conversation. Ito & Tagliamonte (2003) noted that educated informants used intensifiers more than the uneducated in their Northern English data from York. Similarly, in the material for the present study, taken from interviews with working-class speakers, the number of adverbs used for intensification is relatively low. However, the larger amount of data in Vasko (2005) include – as could be expected – a greater number of intensifiers, among them those that are not attested in the present material, such as wonderful and terrible, as in [He was] wonderful nice fellow- wonderful nice fellow to work with (Lt. Wilbraham SS) and That used to make them terrible sore (Toft AM).

Adverbs with -ly in particular may not be characteristic for lower-class speakers. In his studies of Scottish English (based on data collected from Ayr and Glasgow), Macaulay (1991a, 1995, 1997, 2002) found that middle-class speakers used adverbs with -ly suffix much more frequently for intensification than did the lower-class speakers.

[13] In her study of six dual-form adverbs in the data from the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC), covering the period from c. 1400 to 1800, Nevalainen (2008: 7) notes that the intensifier real(ly) started to spread in Late ModE. In present-day English, the selection of forms with and without -ly varies regionally (Kortmann & Schneider 2006; see note [2]). Evidence for social differentiation also emerges in research on regional varieties. In their Northern English data from York, Tagliamonte & Ito (2002; Ito & Tagliamonte 2003) observe the use of really at the expense of very among young and middle aged informants, while the suffixless intensifier real is found to mark less educated male speech.

[14] According to Nevalainen (2008: 7), very replaced full as the most popular intensifying word modifier in Early ModE. For the data in Nevalainen (2008), see note [13].

[15] The infrequency of very noted in traditional working-class dialect speech in Cambridgeshire is also found in studies such as Macaulay (2002: 404), based on data collected from Ayr and Glasgow. In these Scottish data, very is almost categorically a middle-class word.

[16] See also Nevalainen (2008: 7).

[17] Edwards & Weltens (1985: 114) consider this intensifying use of like typical with adverbs, e.g. She’s poorly like.