Adverbs & Modifying Phrases: Sixth Grade English Grammar
Adverbs and modifying phrases bring exactness to language by answering how, when, where, why, and to what extent an action or quality occurs.
The Versatile Functions of Adverbs
An adverb is a modifier that qualifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. While many adverbs end in the suffix "-ly", many essential adverbs do not.
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| WHAT ADVERBS ANSWER IN A SENTENCE |
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| Question Answered | Concept Modified | Mentor Sentence Examples |
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| How? (Manner) | Action verb | The hawk dove steeply. |
| When? (Time) | Action verb | We will embark immediately. |
| Where? (Place) | Action verb | The explorers rested here. |
| To what extent? | Adjective or Adverb | The ice was extremely brittle. |
| (Degree) | | She ran remarkably well. |
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Modifying Verbs
When modifying an action verb, an adverb illustrates the execution of the action: "The blacksmith hammered rhythmically." Adverbs of manner can move flexibly within a sentence: "Rhythmically, the blacksmith hammered," or "The blacksmith rhythmically hammered."
Modifying Adjectives and Other Adverbs
When an adverb modifies an adjective, it intensifies or diminishes the degree of that attribute: "The desert wind was fiercely hot." Here, "hot" is a predicate adjective, and "fiercely" is an adverb explaining the degree of heat. When an adverb modifies another adverb, it gauges precision: "The falcon dove surprisingly steep."
Good vs. Well, Bad vs. Badly
A frequent source of modifier confusion is the proper usage of "good" versus "well" and "bad" versus "badly."
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| GOOD/WELL AND BAD/BADLY GUIDELINES |
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| Word | Part of Speech | Proper Syntactic Application |
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| good | Adjective | Modifies nouns: a good compass |
| well | Adverb (or Health) | Modifies verbs: performed well |
| bad | Adjective | Follows linking verbs: feel bad|
| badly | Adverb | Modifies action verbs: hurt |
| | | badly, behaved badly |
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"Feel Good" vs. "Feel Bad"
Sensory verbs such as "feel," "look," and "smell" are linking verbs when describing an internal emotional state or physical condition. Therefore, you should say "I feel bad about the delay," not "I feel badly." Saying "I feel badly" literally implies that your physical sense of touch is defective! Reserve "well" as an adjective exclusively when referring to health: "After resting, the patient feels well."
Adverbial Prepositional Phrases and Placement
Prepositional phrases often function adverbially, providing rich context regarding time, location, cause, or manner.
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| POSITIONING ADVERBIAL MODIFIERS |
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| INTRODUCTORY ADVERBIAL PHRASE (Comma Required): |
| "During the ferocious tempest, the sailors lashed the cargo down." |
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| EMBEDDED ADVERBIAL PHRASE (No Comma Needed): |
| "The sailors lashed the cargo down during the ferocious tempest." |
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Avoiding Dangling and Misplaced Modifiers
Because adverbs and adverbial phrases can move around the sentence, writers must be careful not to place them next to the wrong word. In "Running toward the lifeboat, the siren sounded loudly," the introductory phrase accidentally modifies "siren"—suggesting the siren had legs and was sprinting! Fix this by ensuring the true actor immediately follows the introductory phrase: "Running toward the lifeboat, the sailors heard the siren sound loudly."
Exercises and Solutions
Exercise 1: Choosing Between Adjectives and Adverbs. Choose the correct modifier in each of the following sentences and provide a clear grammatical justification in a single paragraph: Sentence A: "The brass gears turned (smooth / smoothly) after being oiled." Sentence B: "The choir sang (good / well) during the winter festival." Sentence C: "After burning the biscuits, the baker felt (bad / badly)."
Solution 1: In Sentence A, the correct word is "smoothly" because it functions as an adverb of manner modifying the action verb "turned." In Sentence B, the correct word is "well" because an adverb is required to modify the action verb "sang"; "good" is an adjective that can only modify a noun. In Sentence C, the correct word is "bad" because "felt" acts as a linking verb connecting the subject "baker" to a predicate adjective describing his emotional state; using "badly" would incorrectly imply that his physical faculty of tactile sensation was impaired.
Exercise 2: Correcting Misplaced Adverbial Modifiers. Rewrite the following sentence to correct the misplaced modifier, and explain the error in a cohesive paragraph: "We watched the lunar eclipse from our rooftop through binoculars that lasted over three hours."
Solution 2: The sentence should be revised to: "From our rooftop, we watched the lunar eclipse that lasted over three hours through binoculars," or even more clearly: "Using binoculars on our rooftop, we watched the lunar eclipse, which lasted over three hours." In the original sentence, the modifying relative clause "that lasted over three hours" was placed directly after "binoculars," creating the ridiculous meaning that the optical binoculars had a three-hour lifespan. Moving the modifier adjacent to "lunar eclipse" properly attributes the duration to the astronomical event.