Which part of speech can modify a noun, adjective, or adverb?

An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Today, we’re going to focus on adverbs that modify adjectives.

A word modifies another word in grammar when it adds meaning or clarification to that word. Modifiers tend to be descriptive words like adjectives or adverbs. We said earlier that an adverb can modify three different things: a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Well, an adjective can only modify nouns. Let’s look at an example:

The silver plane landed softly.

First, let’s identify the noun in this sentence. A noun is a person, place, or thing, so the word plane is the noun in this sentence. Now, we look to see if there are any words in the sentence that tell us more about the plane. The word silver tells us the color of the plane, adding meaning and clarification, so we know that it modifies the word plane. Since plane is a noun, we know that silver must be an adjective, since only adjectives modify nouns.

There’s an adverb in this sentence, too. We see that the plane landed, and we know landed is a verb or action word. The word softly tells us more about how the plane landed, so it is a modifier. Since landed is a verb, we know the modifier has to be an adverb.

Now that we’re comfortable with what an adverb does in a sentence, let’s see what happens when it modifies an adjective instead of a verb.

Take the following sentence:

The blue bird flew.

In this sentence, the noun bird is modified by the adjective blue, which tells us what kind of bird flew—a blue bird! What if we were to add an adverb to this sentence? Often an adverb used to modify an adjective adds a degree of intensity to the adjective:

The very blue bird flew.

The word very in this sentence is an adverb modifying the adjective blue. It’s telling us how blue the blue is. Sometimes, this can get tricky. Imagine the sentence were as follows:

The big blue bird flew.

Big is in the very same place very was in the last sentence, but it’s not an adverb. It’s not telling us anything more about the color blue, but it is telling us something more about the bird. Because it’s telling us something about the noun, we know that big must be an adjective the same way blue is.

A helpful hint to check if a word is modifying the noun in a sentence is to take out the other adjective and see if the sentence makes any sense. If I take out blue in this sentence, it still reads, “The big bird flew”. But if I take out blue in the first sentence we looked at, the sentence changes from “The very blue bird flew” to “The very bird flew.”

That doesn’t make any sense. What is a “very bird?” Very, then, must be a word modifying the color blue, not the bird itself.

In fact, very is a common adverb that you’ll see emphasizing adjective descriptors. Other common adverbs are words like really and slightly. Adverbs often end in -ly, but not always.

If I say that a cat is quite pretty, I’m using the adverb quite to modify the adjective pretty. If I say the book is more interesting, I’m using the adverb more to modify the word interesting.

Adverbs should be as close as possible to the thing they modify in the sentence. If the adverb is too far away from the word it modifies it makes for an awkward sentence and sometimes even changes the meaning.

Review

Let’s look back at what we learned.

If there are two modifying words in front of the noun, one of them could be an adverb modifying the adjective. When an adverb is modifying an adjective it is saying something about the adjective in the sentence, often adding clarification or intensity. The adverb is normally as close as possible to the adjective in a sentence, and often uses intensifying words like more, least, or hardly.

An adverb is a part of speech that modifies a verb, an adjective, and another adverb. When modifying an adjective, an adverb can answer questions regarding the extent to which an adjective describes a noun.

Example of an Adverb Modifying an Adjective

Some examples of adverbs modifying adjectives would be the following:

My math teacher is incredibly patient. (To what extent is my math teacher patient?)

The refrigerator is fully stocked with groceries. (To what extent is the refrigerator stocked?)

I am extremely impressed with your work on that project! (To what extent am I impressed with your work?)

Puppies can be quite difficult to train. (To what extent can puppies be difficult to train?)

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