Confusion of adjectives and adverbs is often caused by the interfering influence of the Russian language. It should be borne in mind that some English verbs can be used both as notional verbs (simple verbal predicates) and as link verbs. When used as link verbs, they are normally followed by adjectives, not adverbs.
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| LINK VERBS
OF BEING
| NOTIONAL VERBS
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| FEEL
| She felt vague and gloomy, she did not know why. (I. Murdoch)
He feels good. (=He is in a cheerful mood)
He feels well. (=He is not ill) (The word “ well” is an adjective in this sentence.)
| How can you feel so differently about someone who means so much to me? (K. Mansfield)
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| LOOK
| ‘You look marvelous,’ said Tallis, ‘you look like flowers, fields, country things.’ (I. Murdoch)
| When she had read it she looked at him happily. (A. Cronin)
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| SOUND
| This would have sounded odd in English some time ago. (Br. Foster)
I mean I wouldn't have been able to do a lot of the things on the current album if I hadn't had samples they just wouldn't have sounded convincing.
| The bell sounded for dinner at eight o’clock.
‘Tap, tap, tap,’ sounded suddenly on the outside door through the preternatural silence.
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| TASTE
| Johnny was in that phase of lotus-eating when all the world tastes bitter in one’s mouth. (O. Henry)
| This soup needs to be tasted carefully as the final result depends on the quality of the homemade purée, stock etc.
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| SMELL
| How strong the jonquils smelled in the warm room. (K. Mansfield)
| Roger walked past a cat and the cat smelled Roger thoroughly.
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| APPEAR
| Solon and his times can appear interesting to students of history simply as a test of the limits and nature of historical argument.
| You never know what will happen, and the winds of change appear swiftly and often destructively.
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| STAND
| I ask them to stand calm, firm and united in this time of trial.
| I have tried several techniques to help the horse to relax and stand calmly.
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| PROVE
| Perhaps the book will prove useful.
| The fingerprints on the gun prove conclusively that he was the murderer.
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| LOOM
| Possessions loom important as you awaken. (=seem important)
Fear of failure loomed large in his mind. (=seemed great)
| It is a white square in which loom faintly a pinkish triangle denoting the facade of a house, a grayish ribbon for a wall, skeletons of poplars and, in the background, the ghost of a mountain.
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| BULK
| Safety considerations bulked large during development of the new spacecraft. (=appeared important)
| Certain paper bulks well.
(=forms a mass)
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| RING
| Her characters and situations all ring false and her movie just seems painful and pointless.
| As the bells rang loudly from the steeple and the grand church filled up with people I thought back to the years of war.
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| HOLD
| The rule holds good. (=is true)
| The race is scheduled to begin on the second Saturday of June of each year, unless extremely inclement weather prevents it from being held safely.
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| LIE
| Never allow any of your money to lie idle.
| The seasonal lagoon and Brigalow scrub attracts many birds and the resident kangaroos lie idly in the shade as you enjoy maybe one of the cheapest games of golf in the country.
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NOTE: The word "badly" is often used incorrectly. For example, "I feel badly for him because he didn't make the cut". Most grammarians believe that this statement is incorrect. In this case bad is an adjective that we use with the link verbs: feel, be, seem, look or appear.
To feel badly implies that your sense of touch is not right. When you are referring to a sense of touch, then badly is used as an adverb describing the verb to feel or touch. The correct way to say the sentence is, "I feel bad for him because he didn't make the cut".
Examples:
I feel bad that I wasn't able to make the concert.
The teacher felt bad that her student wasn't able to pass the exam.
She burned her hands taking the pie out of the oven, and thus felt badly and couldn't distinguish between soft and rough.
He damaged the nerve endings in an accident, and now feels badly. (He probably also feels emotionally bad.)
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| LINK VERBS
OF BECOMING
| NOTIONAL VERBS
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| GET
| Penguins can sometimes get aggressive.
The food is getting cold.
| It helps to practice empathy when trying to get others to tell the truth.
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| GROW
| They say that when a flock of passenger pigeons flew across the countryside, the sky grew dark.
| Japan's GDP grew swiftly in the first quarter of last year.
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| TURN
| The milk will turn sour if you don’t put it in the fridge.
| Do not turn abruptly: turn slowly and gradually, especially when changing lanes.
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| COME
| The sign on my room door came loose.
The fact that Dan’s expectation came true can hardly be a source of surprise.
| Those changes came abruptly and we know very little about abrupt climate change in the tropics.
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| GO
| My camera got some water inside and went crazy.
The meat goes bad.
| The meeting was going badly.
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| RUN
| In summer the creek ran dry.
| Men, women, and children run madly about the streets, waving their arms and shouting
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| FALL
| The child fell sick.
The job fell vacant.
| A bicycle, which had been standing behind the door, fell noisilyto the floor.
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| LINK VERBS
OF REMAINING
| NOTIONAL VERBS
|
| KEEP
| "Well, then, keep quiet," rejoined Sikes with a growl like that he was accustomed to use when addressing his dog, "or I'll quiet you for a good long time to come." (Ch. Dickens)
| Toledo, Paris, Rome, Moscow or Dublin, keep lovingly its 200 covered bridges, and offer its visitors a choice between about a hundred country fairs.
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| REMAIN
| Things will remain quietfor a while. It's just the way it goes.
| "Day dawned on the second of July bright and clear, and we did not know what to do or expect; whether to remain quietly in our homes, or go out in the town as usual and mingle with our people..
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| STAY
| Stay calm. You are not alone.
| Your dog must stay calmly with a stranger while you leave for several minutes.
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