The Adverbial

Adverbial is a part of sentence that modifies

the verbal component of predication.

• He spoke angrily
• He spoke in an
angry voice
• She played tennis
when she was young
A car will pick you up in the morning > A car will pick you up

BUT

She stared at him in disbelief > She stared at him

 Also!

Adverbs are Adverbial

Adverbials are not always adverbs

 Classifications of Adverbials

•Morphological
•Functional
•Syntactic
•Structural
 Morphological Classification
•Single adverb or adverb phrase
She’ll never get over it / She played her part very well
*Single noun or noun phrase
He is travelling north / He drives to work every day
*Prepositional phrase
She listened in silence
*Finite clause
I came to you because you’re her closer friend

*Infinitive, infinitival phrase, infinitival predicative construction

He stopped for a moment to rest / He stepped aside for me to pass
*Absolute participial construction
She sat down, her breath coming painfully
*Gerundial phrase
After leaving her umbrella in the hall, she entered the living room
 Functional Classification

•Adverbials of manner
Two men were working their way slowly up the hillside
•Adverbials of place
Two men were working their way up the hillside
•Adverbials of time
Two men were lost on the hills yesterday
•Adverbials of degree
It was largely their own fault
•Adverbials of frequency
Search parties went out every hour
•Adverbials of attitude
Unfortunately, they were out when we called
 Syntactic Classification

•Front-order
Tonight I go to Egypt
•Pre-order
I never lived in Germany
•Mid-order
I shall never forger the day
•Post-order
I walked angrily out of the room
•End-order
I’ll call you Monday
 Structural Classification

•Simple adverbial
I never believed him
They talked until three o’clock in the morning

•Complex adverbial
He left the man with his mouth open

•Clausal adverbial
If he died, she would die with him