Adjectives and adverbs

One decision, adjective here or adverb, runs through the whole Language in Use paper. In word formation it settles a large share of the gaps. In the multiple-choice cloze the four options are often one stem in its adjective and adverb forms. In the word bank and the letter-hint cloze it comes up more rarely, but it comes up. And in editing the comparison built on adjectives breaks: more cheaper, the most cheapest, so wide enough.

So there is no full chapter on degrees of comparison here; what editing breaks about them has one section near the end. There are gaps from those tasks, and the rule arrives at the point where you trip over it.

The gap that brought you here

You most likely came from word formation, from this exact gap. The stem is printed in brackets and one word goes in. Do it once more.

If you wrote polite, you are in large company, and the reason is deeper than carelessness. German uses the same word in höflich antworten and eine höfliche Antwort, so nothing in the ear says a second form is due. Russian has two forms, вежливый and вежливо, but they do not line up with the English positions: Russian says звучит опасно where English wants sounds dangerous. English marks the difference, and it marks it by position.

The rule and the table

Two words, and the rest of the article is about them. An adjective hangs on a thing: on the noun beside it, or on the subject, the thing the sentence is about. It answers the question what kind. An adverb hangs on the verb and answers the question how. In English the adverb often, but not always, carries the ending -ly.

The choice is made neither by the word in brackets nor by the ending, but by the position in the sentence. There are two tests, and both are done by eye.

First test: cover the slot. If the sentence is still complete without it (subject and predicate in place, nothing cut off), then an adverb belongs there. An adjective usually cannot be removed: either the noun it describes follows it, or a verb on the left breaks off without it. One group of verbs gets past the finger: find, keep, make, leave, consider take an object and then a word that describes the object, found the plan sensible, keep the kitchen clean. The sentence would survive without that word, yet it describes the object and not the action, so it is an adjective. Ask what it hangs on: how the action was done, or what state the object is in.

Second test: look at the verb on the left. English has a small group of verbs that name no event but assign the subject a property: be, look, sound, feel, seem, become, taste, smell, get, stay, turn. They are called link verbs: a link verb reports nothing itself, it only joins the subject to its description. After a link verb comes the form without -ly: sounds strange, not sounds strangely. After any other verb, one that names a real event, comes the adverb.

Here is all of it in one table. It will be needed at every gap below, so keep it in view.

Now for the ending itself, since that is what people rely on most. It is unreliable in both directions.

The ending deceives in the other direction too. friendly, lovely, lonely end in -ly and are adjectives only: nobody says smiled friendly, only smiled in a friendly way. daily, weekly, early are both: a daily paper, published daily. So the question is always the same one: not what does the word look like but what does it hang on.

Word formation: the task where this decision is asked most often

You have read the rule. It is needed now in three other tasks, and in the first of them nothing has to be written: the four forms are already printed for you.

The same decision in three other tasks

Multiple-choice cloze. Four options, usually all four from one stem, so the choice is not between words but between forms.

Here one verb on the left decided everything. The next gap sits in a text where the decision has to be made twice in a row, and the verb on the left is there for only one of the two slots.

Two slots in one sentence, and both closed with a finger. The next task works differently: there the word that decides everything is not on the left of the slot but on the right.

Three more items

The comparison frame decided the form of the word without arguing with the ending. The next item does argue: both words exist in English, and -ly does not tell you which one is wanted.

The pair hard and hardly rests on meaning rather than on position. The next item is settled by position again, and what settles it is a verb easily mistaken for an ordinary action.

The link verb has called for the form without -ly a second time, and both times it was visible to the left of the slot. In the next item the word on the left has nothing to do with the choice of form, and the one on the right has everything to do with it.

One more text, with nothing explained in between

Now as it looks on the paper: a different text, four gaps in a row and no commentary between them. It is about a village hall that the residents repainted themselves.

In none of the four was a list of suffixes needed. In each, the position was read first and the word only afterwards.

Bored or boring: two adjectives from one verb

Word formation often hands you a verb in brackets (interest, bore, surprise, tire) and a slot that wants an adjective. English makes two adjectives from each such verb. The -ing form describes the thing that causes the feeling, the -ed form describes the person who has it: the lecture was boring (it causes boredom), the students were bored (they feel it). The link-verb test tells you an adjective is due; this second test picks which one. Ask who feels it.

Comparison in editing: one degree word too many

Editing breaks comparison by doubling it. A short adjective takes -er and -est, a long one takes more and most, never both: cheaper, the cheapest, more expensive, not more cheaper or the most cheapest. An irregular form is already complete: better, worse, best, worst take no more or most. Words that already name the top of the scale, perfect, ideal, unique, are usually kept without more in careful writing. And enough follows its adjective and takes no so: wide enough, not so wide enough.

Too deep for them to live: what follows too

The multiple-choice cloze also builds gaps on a pattern that opens with too and an adjective. Try one before the rule.

If you picked that the children could, that is the usual miss. It sounds like good English because such a clause exists (a clause is a part of the sentence with its own doer and verb), only it never follows too. After too and an adjective, the pattern runs on to to and a verb, with for and a person in between when you need one: too deep for them to live in. So check which option fits between the adjective and to. The clause with that belongs to another word, so: so deep that they could not live in it says the same, but the verb after could takes no to, and the clause names its object again, it. enough takes the too pattern, only after its adjective: deep enough for them to live in.

What to take away

The order of work is always the same, and it does not start with the ending. Position first: what is on the left, what is on the right, does the sentence stay complete without the slot. Position names the word class. Only then does the word get its form.

Two habits cost the most. The first is translating: German says höflich antworten and gefährlich klingen with one form, Russian says ответили вежливо and звучит опасно with one form, while English demands -ly for one and forbids it for the other. The second is treating -ly as the mark of an adverb: well and fast are adverbs without it, and friendly is not an adverb with it.

Five tasks where this earns or costs marks:

Word formation: where the stem has to become an adjective or an adverb Multiple-choice cloze: where the options differ only in form Open cloze: one word in the slot, and it is often than or as Word bank: the adverb and the comparison frame arrive as one piece Editing: where a comparison carries one degree word too many