Among all of the parts of speech of English, I think adverbs are the least helpful in describing their functions within a language. In an effort to curb the difficulty, I have tried to designate all of the general functions that usually get clumped under adverbs, but none of them seem to capture all of them.
Usually, you get adverbs divided into four groups:
- Manner (The ones that answer, “How?” as in, “In what way?”) This is usually where grammarians usually stuff the “adjective +‘ly’” stuff.
- Time (The ones that answer, “When?”) This is where grammarians usually stuff any adverb that relates to time.
- Place (The ones that answer, “Where?”) This is where grammarians usually stuff any adverb that relates to location.
- Extent (The ones that answer, “How much?”) This is where most grammarians usually stuff intensifiers, other modifiers, and stuff considered “comparative.”
That listing is sorely lacking, so I tinkered and researched and ended up with more classes: Manner, Time, Duration, Frequency, Location, Distance, Extent, Probability/Factuality, and Conjunction.
Then there are indexical and quantified subgroups (pro-adverbs and indefinite adverbs) among them.
But even then, some senses of words simply don’t fit: ‘even,’ ‘instead,’ ‘only,’ etc.
Has anyone encountered an adequate division of these things. I don’t want to go the functionalist route, so thought I’d stop here and see how you folks organize them.