Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Adjectives and Adverbs

It's easy to identify adjectives and adverbs.

No, it isn't.

Well, it's easy to ID an adjective, anyway.

First of all, you'll always find it stuck to some noun.

Last of all, you'll always find it stuck to some noun.

Always, you find an adjective: it's stuck to some noun.

Can't emphasize it enough.

What I can emphasize is the circle of reasoning that proves you've got both a noun and its stuck-on adjective.

First of all, you know when a noun is a person, place or thing. You've got to. You're not getting over 600 without knowing that.

Next step: Recognize idea nouns by their noun endings, aka suffixes.

For example, a revolution may be a series of fights, an armed protest that leads to a change of government, or maybe not even a conflict, but a series of events in a changing world, such as the Industrial Revolution.

Meditation is an action consisting of an attitude; or a series of practices; a sequence of mind and body interactions.

Idea nouns include most words that end in -ion, -ment, -nce, -ity, -ness.

And many more!

But wait! We were talking about adjectives, weren't we? The American Revolution. The Industrial Revolution. The Cyber Revolution. The French, the Russian--

Hey wait! Aren't those salad dressings?

Point is, all these are adjectives. They all describe nouns. They're descriptors. They're all right next to their noun.

"Stand by your noun! wow, wow, wowwow!" You may have heard them referred to as modifiers.

Feh! They're describing, not modifying. They're telling you: What kind? Which one? How many?

Take this note if you haven't taken any others yet:

An adjective will always answer one of these three questions:

Which one?

What kind?

How many?

How many? is self explanatory, so let's focus on Which one? and What kind?

KNOW THIS: When you find a word, and as you get better at it--which you will-- a phrase or a clause--near a noun, and it answers either of those two Qs about that noun -- you've found yourself an adjective!

Conversely, If you find a word describing a kind of thing, or telling which thing, then that thing is an adjective, and the word next to it, the Which? or What? being described will ALWAYS be a noun.

That's why it's easy to ID adjectives, and why . . . they're never adverbs.

Adverbs tell you When? They tell you Where? They tell you How? And they tell you Why?

If they don't, they're not adverbs.

If they do, they are.

It's just that simple.

Really.

The tricky part is that adverbs can tell How? Why? When? or Where? about Verbs, Adjectives, or even other Adverbs.

Not about nouns, though. Adjectives are the only words that describe nouns. Adjectives have cornered the market on talking about nouns.

So, here's your circle of reasoning, your flowchart for adverb ID:

1) Ask yourself: Is this word telling Where? When? How? Why? If so, it's an adverb. 2) If your word is talking about or describing a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, then your word is an adverb.

It's much more common for an adverb to be far afield from its verb, adjective or adverb. It's the leopard frog of descriptors. Adjectives are found near the nouns they describe. Adverbs usually butt up against an adjective or another adverb, but may be quite a way from their verbs.

Remember to ask these four questions about a suspected adverb: Where? When? How: (To what degree? / Under what conditions?) Why?

If your word tells you the answer to one of those four questions, it's an adverb. If not, then it's not.

End of story.

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