DOUBTFUL WORDSThere are some words which may be classed either as particles or as adverbs, since the criteria which we apply to distinguish between these two parts of speech do not appear to yield a clear result here. Among these we should cite the words almost and nearly, which are close to each other in meaning. Taking a sentence like The boat almost overturned, we can say that it is a matter for discussion whether the word almost does or does not denote the manner in which the action of the verb was conducted. Again, talcing the sentence He is nearly thirty years old now, we can also doubt whether the word nearly does or does not modify the word thirty (or, perhaps, the phrase thirty years). It would rather seem that it does not, but any judgement on this issue is bound to be subjective to a considerable extent, since, as we pointed out above, objective criteria do not yield any clear results. Accordingly, the syntactical function of the words almost and nearly will also remain doubtful and a matter for subjective opinion. In weighing different considerations that may be put forward in favour of including the word nearly into one or other morphological category, it is essential to bear in mind a phenomenon which quite definitely speaks against including this word in the class of particles. The word nearly may occasionally have the adverb very 1 See above, p. 125 ff. Doubtful Words 163
We may also note that there is a difference here between the word nearly and the word almost, close as they are in meaning: almost cannot be modified by any word, and the phrase very almost is certainly impossible. Whether this is sufficient reason to put them into different parts of speech is another matter.
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standing before it and modifying it, as in the sentence: The time is very nearly seven fifteen. In the sentence The time is nearly seven fifteen we might bring forward certain arguments to prove that nearly is a particle. However, the possibility of its being modified by the adverb very is a powerful argument against that view: a particle cannot be modified by an adverb, or by any other kind of word, for that matter. Since the status of the word nearly was doubtful anyway, the phrase very nearly casts a definite weight against its being a particle and in favour of its being an adverb.
