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I know that some adjectives (such as easy & short) can be used as adverbs in some situations, but when can this happen and what adjectives does this apply to?

This definitely works: "He stopped short" But does this?: "He fell pretty hard"

tchrist
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Jakob Weisblat
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  • What exactly are you asking here? To stop short is a somewhat idiomatic usage. You normally stop short of doing something, and if the "uncompleted action" isn't explicitly specified, it's normally obvious from context (often, the "action" is simply "talking"). To fall hard is also rather idiomatic - the implication is you hit the ground hard when you have a hard fall. And pretty is just a quantifier, similar to quite, very, etc. In your usages, short and hard are effectively adverbs, modifying stopped and fell. Nothing unusual that I can see. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '12 at 03:20
  • are there any examples that are neither idiomatic nor complement of a linking kernel? – Jakob Weisblat Feb 01 '12 at 03:23
  • These are called "flat adverbs", and there are lots of examples (e.g.: "he drives slow"). I believe that they're used more in the U.S. than in the U.K. – Peter Shor Feb 01 '12 at 03:47
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    I don't know what you mean by "linking kernel", but adjective and adverb aren't really applicable to "words" as such - as you've just shown yourself, short and hard can function as either. Compare "Come quick! / Hold fast!" and "The service was quick/fast". In short, adjective* and adverb are names for syntactic roles ("parts of speech"), not exclusive classifications that attach to individual words in isolation. Also, people often use the adjectival form instead of the adverbial, especially in speech. "How did it go?" - "It went bad!". – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '12 at 03:50
  • @FumbleFingers You can’t move these around like you can adverbs. They’re doing something else. Plus in your "the service was quick", nobody would pretend that quick could be anything but an adjective. Real adverbs like quickly and soon get to move around. These don’t. You might try calling them phrasal verbs, I suppose. – tchrist Feb 01 '12 at 04:02
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    @tchrist: You're thinking the same as OP that "quick" is an adjective, and "quickly" an adverb. Which they usually are - but not in, say "Come quick!". And in the case of "fast", there is only one word-form, which functions as both adjective (a fast car) and adverb (to talk fast). In the end adjective/adverb describe functional roles in utterances, rather than provide unambiguous categories to classify each individual word. And calling any particular conjunction a "phrasal verb" won't change that. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '12 at 04:11
  • @FumbleFingers No, I have no problem with quick acting as an adverb, or fast, or any other adjective-looking word. I understand that all that matters is how things are used. I do have a problem with calling these things adverbs when they do not have the positional flexibility of adverbs like quickly or soon. ‘I shall soon go’, ‘I shall go soon’ are both fine. But ‘I shall tight sit’ is not fine at all; it’s bogus. That’s why I think there is something much more interesting going on here syntactically and perhaps semantically than has been presented yet. – tchrist Feb 01 '12 at 04:16
  • @tchrist: I agree there is much more to it than the simple opposition adverb–adjective. But in order to convincingly claim that these are non-adverbs instead of special adverbs, based on word order, you're going to have to motivate your choice. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 01 '12 at 04:23
  • @Cerberus Some of them feel like they are applying to the subject not to the predicate. In a real and meaningful way, ‘I shall sit tight’ has tight describing/applying/modifying *you, not the sitting. And adjectival word order is a lot more fixed than adverbial word order, which also fits here. I don’t know if this is ‘right’; it’s just one possible model to test. What do you think fast* is doing in ‘Hold fast!’, anyway? It’s just ‘Stay put’ or ‘Sit still’, don’ you think? Those aren’t adverbs. – tchrist Feb 01 '12 at 04:28
  • @tchrist: That is true: the common pattern of finite verb - subject complement could have influenced the use of these words. But it still applies to cases where the word really seems to modify the verb, not the subject: *she fast drove, they slow went, I easy won. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 01 '12 at 04:32
  • @tchrist: Yes, I think that's a good point. Perhaps these usages involve words superficially/syntactically functioning as adverbs, where semantically they're actually acting as somewhat displaced adjectives. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '12 at 04:34
  • +1 Too busy with the intricacies of the question, no one remembered to up vote the OP?:) There *is* a real question here. – Kris Feb 01 '12 at 04:56
  • @Kris: I did! I did! – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 01 '12 at 05:00
  • @Cerberus Oh! Then someone undid that. – Kris Feb 01 '12 at 05:02
  • @Kris: Yup I see a down-vote. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 01 '12 at 05:53

1 Answers1

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I don't think there's much more to it: some adjectives can simply be used as adverbs too. Some can only be so used in certain idiomatic expressions (your estimate fell short), others in a broader context (she drove by fast). There are also other adverbs that simply don't end in -ly, like soon and yonder.

The now productive suffix -ly for adverbs is relatively recent; Dutch and German don't have it—that is, the suffix exists, but it is used differently. In Proto-Germanic/Gothic, the suffix -lîko- could be used to form adjectives from nouns and other adjectives. (Cf. manly, soldierly, womanly, masterly.) The normal suffix for adverbs was -e in Old English, which still exists in German. When the -e ceased to be pronounced in English, at some point -ly became the normal adverbial suffix (it is supposed that there had been adverbs in -ly that had the suffix because they were based on earlier adjectives with -ly, Oxford English Dictionary on -ly_2). This history of the suffix is probably the reason why we still do not use it consistently today.

A small list of seemingly normal English adjectives that can also be adverbs, to which I invite anyone to add more examples:

  • Rest easy.
  • Work hard.
  • Sit still.
  • Fall short.

Edited: The question remains why these adverbs cannot be used before the finite verb:

They quickly followed her.

They soon found her.

*They fast drove to the palace.

I have a theory: because words like fast can be used as regular adjectives, and because many verbs can be used as nouns, it would be very confusing if we could say both *they hard work and their hard work. It could easily lead readers on a false scent, especially in more complex sentences. That could be a reason why we do not use these words in that particular position.

Community
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Cerberus - Reinstate Monica
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    No, those are all doing something else. You cannot easy rest*, or hard work, or still sit, or *short fall. But you can both fall quickly and quickly fall. The things you have there aren’t working as much like adverbs as you seem to think they are. – tchrist Feb 01 '12 at 04:00
  • @tchrist: Then what are your criteria for adverbs, and why should those criteria prevail? Many people would consider these words adverbs, though of course I agree there is plenty of room for discussion. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 01 '12 at 04:19
  • I just want to know why they can’t move around. Somehow that makes them different from things that can, especially if you judge things according to what they do or do not do. The movable things are different from the immovable ones, and I don’t know why. We don’t have good words for these sorts of things in English. I hate what POS taggers do with them. – tchrist Feb 01 '12 at 04:22
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    @tchrist: So would I! I have a theory: because they can be used as regular adjectives, and because many verbs can be used as nouns, it would be very confusing if we could say both *they hard work and their hard work. This could easily lead readers on a false scent, especially in more complex sentences. That could be a reason why we do not use these words in that particular position. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 01 '12 at 04:26
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    @tchrist: Per my first comment to OP, these are all somewhat idiomatic usages. Grammatically, we can easily rest, or stilly sit just as much as the other way around, but they would be odd phrasing either way. IMHO an adverb normally follows a verb, so when we know we're using unusual forms we stick to that rule more diligently. – FumbleFingers Feb 01 '12 at 04:27
  • @tchrist I'm not altogether happy about the classification of still in sit still as other than an adjective, but I can't argue the same way for hard in work hard. Distribution per se isn't a foolproof test for adverbialness; never doesn't appear after the verb, and fast doesn't appear before it. – Edwin Ashworth May 20 '15 at 10:08
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    @EdwinAshworth Another good example is talking tough. It’s not an adjective there as it is with adjectival complements like are happy, seem pleased, become angry, rest contented, but nobody in their right mind would add an -ly to tough. It simply works as an adverb there, just as we see with comparative adverbs in drilling/pushing faster/harder/deeper. – tchrist Feb 12 '17 at 00:55
  • @tchrist♦: Alterantively, we could explain it away as some kind of elliptical construction. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 12 '17 at 13:55
  • @Cerberus Elliptical constructions introduce new forms of grammar. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 12 '17 at 14:51
  • Harrap's English Grammar has a list introduced by 'Certain adverbs sometimes have -ly, sometimes not, and there is often a difference in meaning between the two forms.' Examples given are: ... clean: ... eg 'the arrow went clean through his heart' / 'the bone has broken cleanly'.... clear/clearly; close; dead; dear; deep; direct; due; easy; fair; false; first; flat; free; full; hard; high; just; large; late; loud; low; most; near; quick; right; rough; sharp; short; slow; sound; thick; tight; wrong. >> Examples of the different usages are given for each pair. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 12 '17 at 15:05
  • @EdwinAshworth: Nice list. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 12 '17 at 15:19
  • There are some good treatments in the book, but it works out to about 5% the size of CGEL. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 12 '17 at 15:49