There are very many kinds of adverbs. Examples are: adverbs of manner adverbs of frequency adverbs of time adverbs of place adverbs of certainty etc.

In English adverbs of manner (answering the question how) are often formed by adding -ly to adjectives. For example great yields greatly and beautiful yields beautifully. (Note that some words that end in -ly such as friendly and lovely are not adverbs but adjectives in which case the root word is usually a noun. There are also underived adjectives that end in -ly such as holy and silly.)

The suffix -ly is related to the Germanic word "lich". (There is also an obsolete English word lych or lich with the same meaning.) Both words are also related to the word like. The connection between -ly and like is easy to understand. The connection to lich is probably that both are descended from an earlier word that meant something like "shape" or "form".1 The use of like in the place of -ly as an adverb ending is seen in Appalachian English from the hardening of the ch in "lich" into a k originating in northern British speech.

In this way -ly in English is cognate with the common German adjective ending -lich the Dutch ending -lijk the Dano-Norwegian -lig and Norwegian -leg. This same process is followed in Romance languages with the ending -mente -ment or -mense meaning "of/like the mind".

In some cases the suffix -wise may be used to derive adverbs from nouns. Historically -wise competed with a related form -ways and won out against it. In a few words like sideways -ways survives; words like clockwise show the transition. Again it is not a foolproof indicator of a word being an adverb. Some adverbs are formed from nouns or adjectives by prepending the prefix a- (such as abreast astray). There are a number of other suffixes in English that derive adverbs from other word classes and there are also many adverbs that are not morphologically indicated at all. Comparative adverbs include more most least and less (in phrases such as more beautiful most easily etc.). The usual form pertaining to adjectives or adverbs is called the positive. Formally adverbs in English are inflected in terms of comparison just like adjectives. The comparative and superlative forms of some (especially single-syllable) adverbs that do not end in -ly are generated by adding -er and -est (She ran faster; He jumps highest). Others especially those ending -ly are periphrastically compared by the use of more or most (She ran more quickly) -- while some accept both forms e.g. oftener and more often are both correct. Adverbs also take comparisons with as ... as less and least. Not all adverbs are comparable; for example in the sentence He wore red yesterday it does not make sense to speak of "more yesterday" or "most yesterday". Adverbs as a "catch-all" category Adverbs are considered a part of speech in traditional English grammar and are still included as a part of speech in grammar taught in schools and used in dictionaries. However modern grammarians recognize that words traditionally grouped together as adverbs serve a number of different functions. Some would go so far as to call adverbs a "catch-all" category that includes all words that do not belong to one of the other parts of speech. A more logical approach to dividing words into classes relies on recognizing which words can be used in a certain context. For example a noun is a word that can be inserted in the following template to form a grammatical sentence: The is red. (For example "The hat is red".) When this approach is taken it is seen that adverbs fall into a number of different categories. For example some adverbs can be used to modify an entire sentence whereas others cannot. Even when a sentential adverb has other functions the meaning is often not the same. For example in the sentences She gave birth naturally and Naturally she gave birth the word naturally has different meanings. Naturally as a sentential adverb means something like "of course" and as a verb-modifying adverb means "in a natural manner". This "naturally" distinction demonstrates that the class of sentential adverbs is a closed class (there is resistance to adding new words to the class) whereas the class of adverbs that modify verbs isn't. Words like very and particularly afford another useful example. We can say Perry is very fast but not Perry very won the race. These words can modify adjectives but not verbs. On the other hand there are words like here and there that cannot modify adjectives. We can say The sock looks good there but not It is a there beautiful sock. The fact that many adverbs can be used in more than one of these functions can confuse this issue and it may seem like splitting hairs to say that a single adverb is really two or more words that serve different functions. However this distinction can be useful especially considering adverbs like naturally that have different meanings in their different functions. Huddleston distinguishes between a word and a lexicogrammatical-word.2 The category of adverbs into which a particular adverb falls is to some extent a matter of convention; and such conventions are open to challenge as English evolves. A particular category-breaking use may spread after its appearance in a book song or television show and become so widespread that it is eventually acknowledged as acceptable English. For example "well" traditionally falls in a category of adverb that excludes its use as a modifier of an adjective except where the adjective is a past-participle adjective like "baked". However imitating characters in television shows a growing number of English speakers (playfully or even without reflection) use "well" to modify non-past-participle adjectives as in "That is well bad!" It is possible that this usage will one day become generally accepted. Similarly other category-breaking uses of adverbs may over time move some English adverbs from a restricted adverbial class to a less-restricted one. Not is an interesting case. Grammarians have a difficult time categorizing it and it probably belongs in its own class34 Other languages Other languages may form adverbs in different ways if they are used at all: adverb of manners and adverb of place. In non-standard Brazilian Portuguese the adverb menos (less) sometimes inflects for gender before a feminine noun. Menos gua thus becomes menas gua (less water). This kind of inflection is considered ungrammatical and is not recommended. 1 In Dutch adverbs have the basic form of their corresponding adjectives and are not inflected (except for comparison in which case they are inflected like adjectives too). In German the term Adverb is differently defined than in the English language. German adverbs form a group of not inflectable words (except for comparison in which in rare cases some are inflected like adjectives too). An English adverb which is derived from an adjective is arranged in the German language under the adjectives with adverbial use in the sentence. The others are also called adverbs in the German language. In Scandinavian languages adverbs are typically derived from adjectives by adding the suffix '-t' which makes it identical to the adjective's neuter form. Scandinavian adjectives like English ones are inflected in terms of comparison by adding '-ere'/'-are' (comparative) or '-est'/'-ast' (superlative). In inflected forms of adjectives the '-t' is absent. Periphrastic comparison is also possible. In Romance languages many adverbs are formed from adjectives (often the feminine form) by adding '-mente' (Portuguese Spanish Galician Italian) or '-ment' (French Catalan) (from Latin mens mentis: mind intelligence). Other adverbs are single forms which are invariable. In the Romanian language the vast majority of adverbs are simply the masculine singular form of the corresponding adjective one notable exception being bine ("well") / bun ("good"). However there are some Romanian adverbs that are built from certain masculine singular nouns using the suffix "-ete" such as the following ones: bie-ete (boyishly) tiner-ete (youthfully) brbt-ete (manly) fr-ete (brotherly) etcaetara. Interlingua also forms adverbs by adding '-mente' to the adjective. If an adjective ends in c the adverbial ending is '-amente'. A few short invariable adverbs such as ben "well" and mal "badly" are available and widely used. In Esperanto adverbs are not formed from adjectives but are made by adding '-e' directly to the word root. Thus from bon are derived bone "well" and 'bona' 'good'. See also: special Esperanto adverbs. Modern Standard Arabic forms adverbs by adding the indefinite accusative ending '-an' to the root. For example kathiir- "many" becomes kathiiran "much". However Arabic often avoids adverbs by using a cognate accusative plus an adjective. Austronesian languages appear to form comparative adverbs by repeating the root (as in WikiWiki) similarly to the plural noun. Japanese forms adverbs from verbal adjectives by adding /ku/ () to the stem (e.g. haya- "rapid" hayai "quick/early" hayakatta "was quick" hayaku "quickly") and from nominal adjectives by placing /ni/ () after the adjective instead of the copula /na/ () or /no/ () (e.g. rippa "splendid" rippa ni "splendidly"). These derivations are quite productive but there are a few adjectives from which adverbs may not be derived. In Gaelic an adverbial form is made by preceding the adjective with the preposition go (Irish) or gu (Scottish Gaelic) meaning 'until'. In Modern Greek an adverb is most commonly made by adding the endings <-> and/or <-> to the root of an adjective. Often the adverbs formed from a common root using each of these endings have slightly different meanings. So <> (<tleios> meaning "perfect" and "complete") yields <> (<tleia> "perfectly") and <> (<teleos> "completely"). Not all adjectives can be transformed into adverbs by using both endings. <> (<grgoros> "rapid") becomes <> (<grgora> "rapidly") but not normally *<> (*<grigros>). When the <-> ending is used to transform an adjective whose tonal accent is on the third syllable from the end such as <> (<epsimos> "official") the corresponding adjective is accented on the second syllable from the end; compare <> (<epsima>) and <> (<epismos>) which both mean "officially". There are also other endings with particular and restricted use as <-> <-> <-> etc. For example <> (<atimorit> "with impunity") and <> (<asyzitit> "indisputably"); <> (<autolexe> "word for word") and <> (<autostigme> "in no time"); <> <anglist> "in English (language)" and <> (<papagalist> "by rote"); etc. In Latvian an adverb is formed from an adjective by changing the masculine or feminine adjective endings -s and -a to -i. "Labs" meaning "good" becomes "labi" for "well". Latvian adverbs have a particular use in expressions meaning "to speak" or "to understand" a language. Rather than use the noun meaning "Latvian/English/Russian" the adverb formed form these words is used. "Es runju latviski/angliski/krieviski" means "I speak Latvian/English/Russian" or very literally "I speak Latvianly/Englishly/Russianly". When a noun is required the expression used means literally "language of the Latvians/English/Russians" "latvieu/angu/krievu valoda". In Ukrainian/ Russian an adverb is formed by removing the adjectival suffices "-" "-" or "-" from an adjective and replacing them with the adverbial "-". For example "" "" and "" (fast nice tasty) become "" "" and "" (quickly nicely tastefully). As well note that adverbs are mostly placed before the verbs they modify: " ." (A good son sings nicely/well). Although there is no specific word order in east slavic languages. In Korean adverbs are formed by replacing of the dictionary form of a verb with . So (easy) becomes (easily). In Turkish the same word usually serves as adjective and adverb: iyi bir kz ("a good girl") iyi anlamak ("to understand well). In Chinese adverbs end in the word "" the English equivalent of "-ly". "" on its own literally means "ground". The Azerbaijan linguistic school does not consider an adverb to be an independent part of speech as it is an adverbialized form of other parts of speech. I.e. recognition of its equity with other parts of speech violates the second and fourth laws of logic division. Adverbs are derived from other parts of speech. Their functions are performed by other parts of speech when they play the role of "means of expression" for an adverbial. That is other parts of speech playing the role of adverbial automatically transform (convert) into an adverb.See Mammadov J.M.: Separation of parts of speech (in Russian) See also Grammatical conjunction Prepositional adverb Pronominal adverb v d eLexical categories and their features Noun Abstract/Concrete  Adjectival  Agent  Animate/Inanimate  Attributive  Collective  Common/Proper  Countable  Deverbal  Initial-stress-derived  Mass  Relational  Strong  Verbal  Weak Verb Verb forms Finite  Non-finite Attributive  Converb  Gerund  Gerundive  Infinitive  Participle (adjectival  adverbial)  Supine  Verbal noun Verb types Accusative  Ambitransitive  Andative/Venitive  Anticausative  Autocausative  Auxiliary  Captative  Catenative  Compound  Copular  Defective  Denominal  Deponent  Ditransitive  Dynamic  ECM  Ergative  Frequentative  Impersonal  Inchoative  Intransitive  Irregular  Lexical  Light  Modal  Monotransitive  Negative  Performative  Phrasal  Predicative  Preterite-present  Reflexive  Regular  Separable  Stative  Stretched  Strong  Transitive  Unaccusative  Unergative  Weak Adjective Collateral  Demonstrative  Possessive  Post-positive Adverb Genitive  Conjunctive  Flat  Prepositional  Pronomial Pronoun Demonstrative  Disjunctive  Distributive  Donkey  Dummy  Formal/Informal  Gender-neutral  Gender-specific  Inclusive/Exclusive  Indefinite  Intensive  Interrogative  Objective  Personal  Possessive  Prepositional  Reciprocal  Reflexive  Relative  Resumptive  Subjective  Weak Preposition Inflected  Casally modulated Conjunction Determiner Article  Demonstrative  Interrogative  Possessive  Quantifier Classifier Particle Discourse  Modal  Noun Complementizer Other Copula  Coverb  Expletive  Interjection (verbal)  Measure word  Preverb  Pro-form  Pro-sentence  Pro-verb  Procedure word References Oxford English Dictionary Online; entry on lich etymology section. Huddleston Rodney (1988). English grammar: an outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 7. doi:10.2277/0521311527. ISBN 0-521-32311-8.  Cinque Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional headsa cross linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University press. Haegeman Liliane. 1995. The syntax of negation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ernst Thomas. 2002. The syntax of adjuncts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackendoff Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. MIT Press External links Look up adverb in Wiktionary the free dictionary. List of Common Adverbs The Online Dictionary of Language Terminology