Adverb as a part of speech in English and Ukrainian languages

 

1. Adverb as a part of speech: general characteristics

Adverbs denote the quality of the action, certain characteristic, state or some property or point out towards the fact under which circumstance this or that action or state is taking place. In both languages adverbs are modifiers of verbs and adjectives, in English they are also modifiers of the words of the category of state (also called “statives” or “adlinks”).

Adverb as a part of speech is characterized by the following features:

1. Lexico-grammatical meaning of “qualitative, quantitative or circumstantial characteristics of actions, states or qualities”.

2. Typical stem-building affixes, as in quick-ly, side-ways, clock-wise, back-wards, a-shore, etc. in the English language.

In Ukrainian adverbs are often formed by adding the preposition по- (written hyphenated) (по-доброму, по-батьківськи, по-вашому, по-перше); particles -то, -от, -таки, -будь, -небудь, казна-, хтозна- (десь-то, як-от, коли-небудь, казна-куди, хтозна-як, будь-де, etc. written hyphenated). Particles аби-, ані-, чи-, що-, не-, ні- becoming prefixes are written with adverbs together (aбикуди, абияк, аніколи, чимало, неспокійно, нікуди, щодень, несхвально, etc.).

3. The grammatical category of the degrees of comparison.

4. Its unilateral combinability with verbs, adjectives, adverbs, less regularly with adlinks and nouns speaking of English adverbs. In Ukrainian adverbs usually modify verbs, showing different circumstances under which actions take place.

5. The syntactic function of adverbial complement or adverbial modifier, sometimes other functions.

As the definition of the lexico-grammatical meaning shows, English adverbs may be divided into three lexico-grammatical subclasses: qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial.

Qualitative adverbs like loudly, quickly, brightly, etc. usually modify verbs, less often adlinks. They show the quality of an action or state much in the same way as a qualitative adjective shows the quality of some substance. Compare: speak loudly and loud speech, walks quickly and a quick walk.

The connection between qualitative adverbs and adjectives is obvious. In most cases the adverb is derived from the adjective with the help of the most productive adverb-forming suffix -ly. Like the corresponding adjectives qualitative adverbs usually have opposites of the comparative and superlative degrees.

Quantitative adverbs like very, rather, too, nearly, greatly, fully, hardly, quite, utterly, twofold, etc. show the degree, measure, quantity of an action, quality, state, etc.

The combinability of this subclass is more extensive than that of the qualitative adverbs. Besides verbs and adlinks quantitative adverbs modify adjectives, adverbs, numerals, modals, even nouns. E.g.:

You have quite hurt him.

Rather disconsolate she wandered out into the cathedral.

She knew it only too well.

He had become fully aware of it.

It was nearly ten.

He is wholly master of the situation.

Very probably he won't interfere.

Circumstantial adverbs serve to denote various circumstances (mostly local and temporal) attending an action. Accordingly they fall into two subclasses:

a) adverbs of time and frequency (yesterday, tomorrow, before, often, again, twice, etc.);

b) adverbs of place and direction (upstairs, inside, behind, homewards, etc.).

Circumstantial adverbs are not inwardly connected with the verbs they are said to modify. They do not characterize the action itself but name certain circumstances attending the action described in the sentence and usually referring to the situation as a whole. Therefore a circumstantial adverb can be used in a sentence in which the only verb is a link verb, i.e. where no action is described. E.g.:

He will be ten tomorrow.

This accounts for the fact that, unlike qualitative and quantitative adverbs, circumstantial adverbs are no necessarily placed near the verb, they may occupy different places in the sentence. E.g.:

It was’t any too warm yesterday. Yesterday they went there quite alone.

When Henry Sweet speaks of adverbs, as showing “almost last remains of normal free order in Modern English”, it concerns mostly circumstantial adverbs.

Only a small group of circumstantial adverbs denoting indefinite time and place (soon, late, often, near, far) have opposites of comparison. Most adverbs of this subclass form no opposemes of any grammatical category [24; 86–92].

In Ukrainian the subclasses of adverbs are presented in a slightly different way. The semantics of Ukrainian adverbs varies that is why according to their meaning they can be subdivided into defining and circumstantial (означальні та обставинні).

Defining adverbs are divided further in their turn into qualitative, quantitative and adverbs of manner (якісні, кількісні і способу дії):

a) qualitative – добре зробив, щільно зачинена, весело заспівали;

b) quantitative – дуже весела людина, досить пристойно, особливо активно;

c) adverbs of manner – крутився колесом, поводився по-дитячому, їхати верхи.

Circumstantial adverbs include adverbs that denote different outside space and time circumstances (вгорі, знизу, надворі, зверху, увечері, згодом), inside circumstances of reason and aim (спересердя, спросоння, зопалу, навмисне, на щастя).

According to their origin and the way of formation Ukrainian adverbs are subdivided into primary and secondary (первинні та вторинні).

Primary adverbs are those that were created so long ago and changed so much that it is difficult to define their primary form (тут, там, завжди, де, тоді, куди, доки, etc.). They are rather few in number.

Secondary adverbs make up the main part of Ukrainian adverbs. They are formed by rather productive ways of word formation that is suffixation and prefixation. For example, such adverbs as добре, гаряче are formed in a syntactic-morphological way, whereas adverbs по-латині, весело, по-ударному belong to the morphological way of formation [15; 194–199].

When comparing English and Ukrainian adverbs as parts of speech, one may say that they differ but slightly. Their lexico-grammatical meanings, morphological categories, combinability and syntactical functions are fundamentally the same.

Nevertheless, certain distinctions are worth noting.

1. The stem-building lexico-grammatical morphemes of Ukrainian adverbs are somewhat more numerous and varied.

2. Among the adverb building morphemes we find several suffixes of subjective appraisal - еньк-, -ісіньк-, -есеньк: швиденько, давненько, смачненько, точнісінько, тихесенько, which are absolutely alien to English. Under the influence of such forms in the Ukrainian colloquial language there are also used such adverbs as недалечко, змалечку, осьдечки and others, without the meaning of diminutiveness. In English the following meanings are rendered usually in a descriptive way.

3. The adverbialization of substantival and adjectival gramme­mes (e.g. кроком, стрілою, весною) is a productive way of forming adverbs in Ukrainian, whereas in English it is less common.

4. The peculiarity of the English language is the presence of a rather large quantity of adverbs that are homonymous with nouns and adjectives at this their meanings become obvious only in the context. Compare: south – південь, на південь, fast – швидко, швидкий etc. Some simple adverbs of place and direction, for example, away, down, in, off, over, up coincide with the verbal postpositive attachment (дієслівні постпозитивні приставки/післялоги). Adverbs differ from postpositive attachments in a way that being the notional part of speech they have the independent meaning and are used in the function of a certain part of the sentence, whereas postpositive attachments take part only in the word formation process of the verb (словотворення дієслова).

5. The peculiar feature of English circumstantial adverbs is their ability to render the place of some action or its direction depending on the context, compare: here – тут, сюди; there – там, туди; where – де, куди; inside – всередині, всередину; outside – зовні, назовні; nowhere – ніде, нікуди etc. In Ukrainian meanings of the action location or direction are rendered, as a rule, by different adverbs: дома – додому, збоку – вбік.

6. Among English qualitative adverbs there is a rather large and specific group of words of this category, formed with the help of the adverbial suffix - ly from the Participle I (imploring – imploringly, mocking – mockingly). This way of formation is a very productive one in English. Stemming from the verb, these adverbs modify the main action in a way that they point out as its characteristic feature towards another simultaneous action going in parallel with it (compare: He looked imploringly at his bother. – Він благально (або з благанням) подивився на свого брата.)

7. The peculiar feature of the Ukrainian language is the group of adverbs, denoting manner, which are called sometimes “adverbs expressing comparison and similarity ” (порівняльно-уподібню­вальні). They are formed with the help of prefix по -: по-дитячому, по-вовчому, по-нашому, по-козацьки, also without the prefix from the instrumental case of nouns: Дим валить стовпом. In English the corresponding meaning is usually rendered with the help of word combinations, e.g.: like a child, like a wolf.

Despite all the differences there can be differentiated the following isomorphic groups of adverbs in both languages – qualitative adverbs and circumstantial adverbs (якісні й обставинні прислівники). Qualitative adverbs besides have two more subgroups: 1) adverbs of manner (прислівники способу дії) and 2) adverbs of measure, degree and quantity (прислівники міри, ступеня та кількості) [5; 106–107].