Are adverbs mere adjective spinoffs?
November 13, 2009 9:02 AM Subscribe
Are adverbs mere adjective spinoffs?
From noticing the pedantic correction of adjective use where adverb use would be more appropriate, I've developed a fascination with the adverb. I even developed an entire theory of its development in the English language, but unfortunately it is based on no actual research. I am now curious how far off the mark it is.
Many "modern" adverbs seem to be the result of the adjective+"ly" construction. Other common constructions include -wise and -like (the latter which I understand to actually be quite old). Was there a time when English had but a small set of "natural" adverbs before the conversion of so many adjectives?
I've also anecdotally noticed that words that had previously worked as adverbs, like "quick" or "slow," are now reconstructed as "quickly" and "slowly." I'm guessing this comes from the fact that everyone is so used to adverbs ending in -ly, that they no longer sound "right" to some people without the ending. Even "high," which people accept in many adverb circumstances involving positioning, becomes "highly" when one is thinking highly of someone else. How and why did these double-duty adjective/adverbs actually evolve this way? Was there a time when adjective and adverbs were less distinct?
From noticing the pedantic correction of adjective use where adverb use would be more appropriate, I've developed a fascination with the adverb. I even developed an entire theory of its development in the English language, but unfortunately it is based on no actual research. I am now curious how far off the mark it is.
Many "modern" adverbs seem to be the result of the adjective+"ly" construction. Other common constructions include -wise and -like (the latter which I understand to actually be quite old). Was there a time when English had but a small set of "natural" adverbs before the conversion of so many adjectives?
I've also anecdotally noticed that words that had previously worked as adverbs, like "quick" or "slow," are now reconstructed as "quickly" and "slowly." I'm guessing this comes from the fact that everyone is so used to adverbs ending in -ly, that they no longer sound "right" to some people without the ending. Even "high," which people accept in many adverb circumstances involving positioning, becomes "highly" when one is thinking highly of someone else. How and why did these double-duty adjective/adverbs actually evolve this way? Was there a time when adjective and adverbs were less distinct?
(in other words, this way of making adverbs seems to be something that's been present in at least some Indo-European languages since way before English came into being)
posted by oinopaponton at 9:07 AM on November 13, 2009
posted by oinopaponton at 9:07 AM on November 13, 2009
Many "modern" adverbs seem to be the result of the adjective+"ly" construction.
I'm sure Languagehat or one of his ilk will pop in to educate us all on history, but I do know that the -ly in English comes from the -lic ("like") in Old English, which was once the source for most (all?) adverbs. It survives in the -like words in English today.
posted by rokusan at 9:15 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
I'm sure Languagehat or one of his ilk will pop in to educate us all on history, but I do know that the -ly in English comes from the -lic ("like") in Old English, which was once the source for most (all?) adverbs. It survives in the -like words in English today.
posted by rokusan at 9:15 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
I've also anecdotally noticed that words that had previously worked as adverbs, like "quick" or "slow," are now reconstructed as "quickly" and "slowly."
If I could piggyback on this question, I'd also be interested in hearing from one of the linguist types around here why this has conspicuously not happened with "fast." For instance, "You're driving too fast" is correct, while only a non-native speaker would even think to say "fastly."
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:19 AM on November 13, 2009
If I could piggyback on this question, I'd also be interested in hearing from one of the linguist types around here why this has conspicuously not happened with "fast." For instance, "You're driving too fast" is correct, while only a non-native speaker would even think to say "fastly."
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:19 AM on November 13, 2009
Latin and Romance adjectives are also formed from adjectives (primarily) with adverbial endings. This is hardly a rare practice. If I remember my linguistics, "adverb" is a hard-wired category in the brain, so naturally people will try to differentiate it.
posted by Electrius at 9:29 AM on November 13, 2009
posted by Electrius at 9:29 AM on November 13, 2009
What is your time frame for "quick" and "slow" being correct as adverbs? Those haven't been correct for probably a couple hundred years. Perhaps you just moved throughout your life from circles where people were less concerned about grammatical correctness to circles where people became better educated and/or cared more?
posted by brainmouse at 9:32 AM on November 13, 2009
posted by brainmouse at 9:32 AM on November 13, 2009
Response by poster: What is your time frame for "quick" and "slow" being correct as adverbs? Those haven't been correct for probably a couple hundred years. Perhaps you just moved throughout your life from circles where people were less concerned about grammatical correctness to circles where people became better educated and/or cared more?
I can't say I've noticed many people using quick or slow as adverbs in any "circle" at any point in my life, though I'm sure it wouldn't stand out much if they did. I don't have the best tools for this research at my disposal (or else I might not have asked this question), but I know notable authors, writing in otherwise formal style, from within the past 200 years have used them as adverbs regularly. I wouldn't imply that they were uneducated or cared less. Picking out a few authors doesn't really tell me much about the actually evolution, though.
posted by aswego at 9:42 AM on November 13, 2009
I can't say I've noticed many people using quick or slow as adverbs in any "circle" at any point in my life, though I'm sure it wouldn't stand out much if they did. I don't have the best tools for this research at my disposal (or else I might not have asked this question), but I know notable authors, writing in otherwise formal style, from within the past 200 years have used them as adverbs regularly. I wouldn't imply that they were uneducated or cared less. Picking out a few authors doesn't really tell me much about the actually evolution, though.
posted by aswego at 9:42 AM on November 13, 2009
Best answer: I'll quote the relevant section (pages 272-73) from Barbara M. H. Strang's A History of English, a book I highly recommend if you're interested in this kind of thing:
No, that's an entirely different formation. See the OED.
posted by languagehat at 9:55 AM on November 13, 2009 [5 favorites]
Superficially, the development of adverbs is not very striking during the period [1170-1370], and yet it is during [this period] that essential aspects of modern adverbial formation take shape. Certain important features were inherited from O[ld] E[nglish]. In the first place, all adverbs save a few notable exceptions were derived [i.e., were not basic words without endings]; in the second, many of the derivations were by specialisation of inflectional forms belonging to other form-classes. Most commonly, adverbs were specialised uses of an old adjective case-ending in -e that we can best call dative-instrumental (it is concerned with means and thence with manner). A very common type of adjective with which this method was used was that which itself was formed with the semi-suffix -lic ('shape, form, body') added to a nominal stem, as in the series freond - freondlic - freondlice ('friend, friendly, friendlily'). Indeed, such forms were so familiar that -lice came to be isolated as a formative and thought of as 'the' way of making adverbs. It is added even redundantly, and to forms where -lic would not fit; for instance, we have eornoste, adj and adv ('earnest(ly)'), but a new adverbial form eornostlice is created to keep the Ø [i.e., no ending]: -lice correlation. Although the formations in -e and -lice are in origin identical, by 1170 they were felt as distinct, -e, though familiar in many common words, having become inactive [i.e., not added to new forms], while -lice was highly productive. This was the situation in the S[outh] and Mid[lands]. The N, having already lost -e, will have types in Ø and -lik, which in weak (i.e., normal) use, will become -li (cf. ik, i [meaning 'I']). This is clearly the pattern we have inherited in P[resent-day] E[nglish]. In run fast, go slow, adverbs of unchanged type survive; in prettily, happily,> It survives in the -like words in English today.
noisily, the -li type survives. It is likely that the O[ld] N[orse] suffix -lig, which also became -li, gave support, but native tradition is sufficient to account for it. By the end of our period the S was reaching the same stage in respect of loss of -e, but its reflex of -lice was -lich, which cannot be the source of the modern forms. The sense of unease about adverbs homophonous with an adjective, which led to the development of the eornostlice type, has been felt at all periods, and there has been a steady progress from plain to -ly forms; even the very tenacious close-knit phrases I quoted as evidence of plain adverbs are now felt by some speakers to require re-formation in -ly.
No, that's an entirely different formation. See the OED.
posted by languagehat at 9:55 AM on November 13, 2009 [5 favorites]
> What is your time frame for "quick" and "slow" being correct as adverbs? Those haven't been correct for probably a couple hundred years.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Learn what you're talking about before you make pronouncements.
posted by languagehat at 9:56 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Learn what you're talking about before you make pronouncements.
posted by languagehat at 9:56 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
Only on rereading do I see I typed "the -like words in modern English" when I meant "the -ly words" in my comment above. Not sure if that's worth fixing, or if it's obvious enough in context, but it really only makes sense that way.
Fowler in English Grammar, for what he's worth to the historic question:
posted by rokusan at 10:09 AM on November 13, 2009
Fowler in English Grammar, for what he's worth to the historic question:
1. Adverbs ending in "ly" -- Ly, Anglo-Saxon lic, was once an independent word, the Anglo-Saxon lic=like. Words of this termination were, in Anglo-Saxon, compound adjectives. So, in Old English, we have the adjective earthliche, earthly; ferliche, strange. In modern English there are words such as godly, lonely, lovely. Godly is equivalent to God-like. According to the present habit of the English language, an adjective is converted into an adverb by annexing ly; as bright, brightly.Perhaps pertinent to some of the side-questions, if only to note that when writing that in 1867, he called the +ly a "present habit".
posted by rokusan at 10:09 AM on November 13, 2009
I can't answer the history part, but you might find this tangentially interesting:
Sometimes when people correct an adjective to an adverb, they're actually wrong (disclaimer: wrong in the technical sense, anyway). Just because something is a verb does not mean only adverbs can touch it. For example, it's correct to say "I feel bad" whereas "I feel badly" means something else entirely, but someone might still claim you're supposed to say "I feel badly." For things like feelings, or most things having to do with our senses, you're supposed to take the adjective form. "I smell bad" means that you stink, whereas "I smell badly," means that your sense of smell is poor. "Broccoli tastes bad" means, well, exactly what it sounds like, but "Broccoli tastes badly," means that the broccoli has become sentient, though it's a cursed existence where it can't taste much of anything. It has excellent hearing, though.
I don't like to say that anything is objectively wrong in language, because there's an argument to be made that when someone says something like, "I feel badly," they have actually conveyed the same meaning as "I feel bad" because mostly people don't know the difference. In the instance that this happens because are incorrectly correcting people, though, and that it really does get confusing with things like "I smell badly," I don't think it hurts to point it out.
You might find this short (it's a couple of minutes) podcast helpful, and if you like that you'll probably like the whole series.
For what it's worth, I've never known "quick" to be used as anything but an adjective except incorrectly, because it's adverb form is "quickly." I double-checked this with a dictionary. "Slow" has two adverb forms, and either is technically correct: slow, and slowly. Now, something like "fast" is a different story, because "fast" is both the adjective and adverb form, and "fastly" would be gratuitous.
posted by Nattie at 10:48 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
Sometimes when people correct an adjective to an adverb, they're actually wrong (disclaimer: wrong in the technical sense, anyway). Just because something is a verb does not mean only adverbs can touch it. For example, it's correct to say "I feel bad" whereas "I feel badly" means something else entirely, but someone might still claim you're supposed to say "I feel badly." For things like feelings, or most things having to do with our senses, you're supposed to take the adjective form. "I smell bad" means that you stink, whereas "I smell badly," means that your sense of smell is poor. "Broccoli tastes bad" means, well, exactly what it sounds like, but "Broccoli tastes badly," means that the broccoli has become sentient, though it's a cursed existence where it can't taste much of anything. It has excellent hearing, though.
I don't like to say that anything is objectively wrong in language, because there's an argument to be made that when someone says something like, "I feel badly," they have actually conveyed the same meaning as "I feel bad" because mostly people don't know the difference. In the instance that this happens because are incorrectly correcting people, though, and that it really does get confusing with things like "I smell badly," I don't think it hurts to point it out.
You might find this short (it's a couple of minutes) podcast helpful, and if you like that you'll probably like the whole series.
For what it's worth, I've never known "quick" to be used as anything but an adjective except incorrectly, because it's adverb form is "quickly." I double-checked this with a dictionary. "Slow" has two adverb forms, and either is technically correct: slow, and slowly. Now, something like "fast" is a different story, because "fast" is both the adjective and adverb form, and "fastly" would be gratuitous.
posted by Nattie at 10:48 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
Just wanted to add that there are many common words that are non-"--ly" adjectives which might not come as readily (yuk yuk) to mind. Tomorrow, always, more, somewhere, just, etc.
In many languages (though I don't know enough about English to say either way authoritatively regarding it), the class understood by linguists as 'adverb', much like 'particle', has traditionally, inadvertently, taken on a sort of "miscellaneous bin" quality.
posted by threeants at 10:48 AM on November 13, 2009
In many languages (though I don't know enough about English to say either way authoritatively regarding it), the class understood by linguists as 'adverb', much like 'particle', has traditionally, inadvertently, taken on a sort of "miscellaneous bin" quality.
posted by threeants at 10:48 AM on November 13, 2009
to tack onto my last thought: that is to say, nouns and verbs (and often adjectives) are easier, in many languages, to define as a class, whereas adverbs often seem to be less a rigorous word class and more just whatever's left.
posted by threeants at 10:51 AM on November 13, 2009
posted by threeants at 10:51 AM on November 13, 2009
threeants totally has it. Adverbs modify verbs or clauses or other words, and while many have a form ending in -ly or -wise or somethign similar, there are loads and loads that don't. Many of these are adverbs of time, quantity and degree. threeants listed a few, but some of the most common adverbs are words like "very" or "all" (as in "he's all sad and lonely.")
To answer the original poster:
Was there a time when English had but a small set of "natural" adverbs before the conversion of so many adjectives?
I'd argue that they still do. Take a look at this list of the 500 Most Commonly Used Words In The English Language. It's got plenty of adverbs in it, but only one - "only" - ends in "-ly."
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 11:12 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
To answer the original poster:
Was there a time when English had but a small set of "natural" adverbs before the conversion of so many adjectives?
I'd argue that they still do. Take a look at this list of the 500 Most Commonly Used Words In The English Language. It's got plenty of adverbs in it, but only one - "only" - ends in "-ly."
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 11:12 AM on November 13, 2009 [1 favorite]
What is your time frame for "quick" and "slow" being correct as adverbs? Those haven't been correct for probably a couple hundred years.
The American Heritage Dictionary specifies otherwise for "slow." It includes examples such as "The watch runs slow" and "Go slow!" For "quick," however, a usage note is raised as to its informality in written English.
posted by wackybrit at 11:16 AM on November 13, 2009
The American Heritage Dictionary specifies otherwise for "slow." It includes examples such as "The watch runs slow" and "Go slow!" For "quick," however, a usage note is raised as to its informality in written English.
posted by wackybrit at 11:16 AM on November 13, 2009
> What is your time frame for "quick" and "slow" being correct as adverbs? Those haven't been correct for probably a couple hundred years.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Learn what you're talking about before you make pronouncements.
Yes, as an English learner, there are certainly phrases I love for no reason other than how they seem to convey some idea in a "neat" (sometimes folksy, sometimes concise, sometimes funny) way. For me, two examples are:
"Think (or look) quick!" (Usually before someone tosses you something unexpectedly.)
"Go slow!" (Which I first heard in Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam," in which the historical admonition for slaves / black workers to "work faster" is contrasted with excuses by the slave owners / conservative white classes of the dangers of "change" to come too quickly.)
Both of these are common and widely accepted in English, and direct examples of what supposedly hasn't been correct "for probably a couple hundred years."
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 11:21 AM on November 13, 2009
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Learn what you're talking about before you make pronouncements.
Yes, as an English learner, there are certainly phrases I love for no reason other than how they seem to convey some idea in a "neat" (sometimes folksy, sometimes concise, sometimes funny) way. For me, two examples are:
"Think (or look) quick!" (Usually before someone tosses you something unexpectedly.)
"Go slow!" (Which I first heard in Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam," in which the historical admonition for slaves / black workers to "work faster" is contrasted with excuses by the slave owners / conservative white classes of the dangers of "change" to come too quickly.)
Both of these are common and widely accepted in English, and direct examples of what supposedly hasn't been correct "for probably a couple hundred years."
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 11:21 AM on November 13, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by oinopaponton at 9:05 AM on November 13, 2009