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In this topic I am going to deal with the expression of manner, means and
instrument. I will divide my topic into four sections. In my first section I will
present some general aspects about adverbs and deal with the expression of
manner, mainly through adverbs but also through manner clause. In my second
section I will deal with the expression of means and instrument. Then I will
present some less frequent ways of expressing manner, means and instrument.
Finally, in my last section I will deal with some ways to distinguish between
manner, means and instrument expressions, as they are usually confused.
But before I go any further I’d like to mention the bibliography I’ve used in order to
develop this topic:
- Downing, A. and P. Locke. 2002. A University Course in English Grammar.
- Greenbaum, S. 2000. The Oxford Reference Grammar.
- Hymes, D. 1972. On communicative competence.
You can also ask a more specific question about the instrument with
which an action is performed: What did Gala write the book with?
Rocio Jurado stirred her coffee thoughtfully before answering. She answered
in a womanlike way / manner. As she was nervous, she stubbed out her
cigarette with unnecessary fierceness.
1
I am going to look at adverbs of manner. The adverb is the most
heterogeneous of all word classes in English grammar. It contains words which
perform a wide variety of functions within the sentence. They have two main
functions: they can be an adverbial clause element, performing different kinds
of roles within the clause (She performed well); or they can premodify a word
phrase, most often an adjective or another adverb (You spoke very anxiously).
I would like to point out that an adverb is a single word (just, only,
therefore…). However, there are many cases where a multi-word
construction performs the same function. For example, adverbs often act as
the head of a phrase (an adverb phrase such as very happily indeed). A whole
clause may function as an adverb (They left when their car was fixed).
Moreover, prepositional phrases are amongst the commonest types of
adverbials (They treated me in a bad way). Adverbial is the general term which
is used for all these types of constructions.
2
restrictions on the use of –ly. So, I am going to deal briefly with the rules for
forming adverbs from adjectives:
Adjectives ending in consonant + le form adverbs by replacing –le by –
ly: gentle – gently (exception: wholly).
Adjectives ending in consonant + y usually replace y with i before –ly:
happy – happily. In other cases the y is maintained in the adverb: wry-
wryly.
Adjectives ending in –ic and –ical have corresponding adverbs in –
ically: historic / historical historically (an exception is publicly).
-ed participles form adverbs in –edly with the pronunciation /idli/:
learned /l :nid/ -- learnedly /l :nidli/.
Adjectives in –ary form adverbs in –arily with no shift of stress in BE but
with a shift to the antepenultimate syllable in AmE: ‘secondary –
second,darily (AE) ‘secondarily (BE).
3
I would like to say that the formation of adverbs of manner is an area of
difficulty for foreign language learners, specifically, the Spanish ones since they
have many problems with the formation and rules.
4
The verb USE and its object also convey the idea of instrument.
Victoria used a bag to hit Ana
5
Marujita Diaz behave that Sara Montiel forgave her everything. However,
adverbs which express means and instrument cannot combine with these
features as they are derived from non-gradable adjectives.
To sum up, in this topic I have dealt with the expression of manner,
means and instrument. I have divided my topic into sections. In my first section I
presented some general aspects about adverbs and dealt with the expression
of manner, mainly through adverbs but also through manner clause. In my
second section I dealt with the expression of means and instrument. Then I
presented some less frequent ways of expressing manner, means and
instrument. Finally, in my last section I have dealt with some ways to distinguish
between manner, means and instrument expressions, as they are usually
confused.