Adjective or adverb?

Nice or nicely; quiet or quietly; slow or slowly.

§  Adjective or adverb?

Andrew: I liked the dish Martha prepared last night.

Dennis: Yes, it was a nice dish. She prepared it nicely.

An adjective (nice) describes a noun (dish).

An adverb (nicely) describes a verb (cook).

Adjective: The boy had a quiet voice.

Adverb: The boy spoke quietly.

Adjective: Samantha wears expensive attires.

Adverb: Samantha dresses expensively.

§  The -ly ending:

We form many adverbs from an adjective+ ly. For example politely, safely,quietly.

Look out for these spelling rules:

§  We do not leave out e, e.g nice.....nicely.

Exceptions to the rule are true....truly

whole...wholly.

y....ily after a consonant, e.g. easy....easily, lucky....luckily, angry...angrily, happy....happily, heavy....heavily,etc.

le....ly, e.g. possible.....possibly, comfortable....comfortably, probable....probably, reasonable....reasonably, sensible....sensibly,terrible....terribly, etc.

 ic.....icially, e.g. scientific....scientifically, dramatic....dramatically, automatic....automatically, etc. (Exception:publicly)

§  Looked angry and looked carefully:

Linking verb+ Adjective

• Amanda was hungry.
• The students seemed tired.
• My tea has got cold.

Action verb+ Adverb

• Tim ate hungrily.
• The workers worked passionately.
• The man stared coldly at us.

Some verbs like look, taste and appear can be either linking verbs or action verbs.

Linking verb+Adjective.

• Carlos looked angry.
• The medicine tasted bitter.
• The man appeared to be drunk.

Action verb+ Adverb.

• He looked carefully at the picture.
• Emma tasted her drink nervously.
• A soldier appeared suddenly in front of us.