Adverbial - The Form of Adverbials

The Form of Adverbials

In English, adverbials most commonly take the form of adverbs, adverb phrases, temporal noun phrases or prepositional phrases. Many types of adverbials (for instance reason and condition) are often expressed by clauses.

James answered immediately. (adverb)

James answered in English. (prepositional phrase)

James answered this morning. (noun phrase)

James answered in English because he had a foreign visitor. (adverbial clause)

An adverbial is a construction that modifies, or describes, verbs. When an adverbial modifies a verb, it changes the meaning of that verb. Word groups that are also considered to be adverbials can also modify verbs: for example, a prepositional phrase,a noun phrase, a finite clause or a non-finite clause.

In every sentence pattern, the adverbial is a clause element that tells where, when, why, or how. There can be more than one adverbial in a sentence. In addition, the same adverbial can be moved to different positions in a sentence.

One way to analyze sentence structure is to think in terms of form and function. Form refers to a word class—such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and preposition—as well as types of phrases, such as prepositional phrase, nominal clause, and adverbial clause. Function refers to the function of the form in a sentence. For example, the function of a prepositional phrase in a sentence may be adverbial; that is, it modifies a verb.