Adverb Phrase

Adverb definition

Before we dive straight into adverb phrases, let's first look at adverbs and how they work.

The word 'quickly' is an adverb e.g. ‘The man ran quickly down the street’. The adverb 'quickly' provides additional information about how the man was running.

Now, let's explore how a group of words can provide additional information to a sentence, in the same way the adverb in the previous example did.

What is an adverb phrase?

An adverb phrase (or adverbial phrase) is any phrase that acts as an adverb in a sentence. It provides more information about the verb, adjective, or adverb that it modifies by answering how, where, when, why, or to what degree an action has occurred.

An example of an adverb phrase is:

The adverb phrase ‘as quickly as possible’ provides context to how the man ran. The adverb phrase modifies the verb ‘ran’ by providing additional context.

Adverb phrase examples

Here are a few more examples of adverb phrases:

'All the time' is an adverbial phrase because it modifies the verb 'speak', describing how frequently the action occurs.

'A few weeks ago' is an adverbial phrase because it modifies the verb 'came', describing when the action occurred.

'To find out more' is an adverbial phrase because it modifies the verb 'went', describing why the action occurred. This is also an example of an infinitive phrase acting as an adverbial phrase.

An infinitive phrase is a group of words containing an infinitive (to + verb).

'As far away as necessary' is an adverbial phrase because it modifies the verb 'sat', describing where the action occurred.

Fig. 1 - 'She went to the library to find out more' contains the adverb phrase 'to find out more'

Types of adverb phrases

Adverb phrases can be categorised based on the extra information they provide. There are four main types of adverb phrases: adverb phrases of time, adverb phrases of place, adverb phrases of manner, and adverb phrases of reason.

Adverb phrases of time

Adverb phrases of time tell us when something happens/happened or how often.

Adverb phrases of place

Adverb phrases of place tell us where something takes/took place.

Adverb phrases of manner

Adverb phrases of manner tell us how something happens or is done.

Adverb phrases of reason

Adverb phrases of reason tell us why something is happening'/happened.

Adverb phrases format

There are a few different ways we can form adverbial phrases, and there is no set rule. However, there are three common ways we can look at today; they are prepositional phrases, infinitive phrases, and adverb + intensifier phrases.

Prepositional phrases

A prepositional phrase is a phrase consisting of a preposition (e.g. in, on, under, next to, across, in front of) and its object.

In this example, 'across' is the preposition, and 'the table' is the object of the preposition. The prepositional phrase is acting as an adverbial phrase by providing information about where the bag (noun) is being slid (verb).

Infinitive phrases

An infinitive phrase is one that begins with the infinitive form of a verb (containing the word 'to' e.g. 'to swim', 'to run').

In this example, the infinitive phrase 'to learn how to cook pasta' is working as an adverb phrase of reason as it tells us why she moved to Italy.

Fig. 2 - Why did she move to Italy? to learn how to cook pasta!

Adverb + intensifier phrases

We can also create adverb phrases using an adverb (e.g. quickly, slowly, carefully) plus an intensifier. An intensifier is a word we can place in front of an adjective or adverb to make it stronger.

Adverb phrases or adverb clauses?

Let's compare adverbial phrases with adverbial clauses.

We now know that an adverbial phrase is a group of words that act as an adverb in a sentence by answering how, where, when, why, or to what degree an action has occurred.

Adverbial clauses are similar to adverbial phrases. However, there are some key differences.

Adverb Clauses

What distinguishes clauses from phrases is this subject-verb element. Phrases do not have to contain a subject and a verb, whereas adverb clauses do.

An adverb clause is any clause that acts as an adverb in a sentence. The clause modifies the verb, adjective or adverb by answering how, where, when, why, or to what degree an action has occurred.

Here is an adverb clause example similar to the first adverb phrase example:

The adverb clause 'as if his life depended on it' provides information about how the man ran, while also containing a subject (life) and a verb (depended).

What separates an adverb clause from other types of clauses is that it is a dependent clause, meaning it cannot exist on its own as a complete sentence.

Adverb clause examples

Like adverb phrases, adverb clauses can be categorised by the information they provide. Some of the examples of how adverb clauses are used include:

How an action is performed:

How frequently an action is performed:

When an action is performed:

Why an action is performed:

Where an action happens:

If a group of words acting as an adverb does not contain both a subject and a verb, then it is an adverb phrase. If the group of words does contain a subject and verb, it is an adverb clause.