GRAMMAR
Spelling and pronunciation · Sentences · Nouns · Determiners · Pronouns · Adjectives · Adverbs · Verbs · Prepositions · Conjunctions · Questions · Clauses · Numbers · Word formation · Abbreviations · Punctuation

Adverbs

Just as adjectives are words that modify nouns, so adverbs are words that modify almost anything else, such as verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, determiners, prepositions, noun phrases, and even whole sentences. Typically, adverbs give information about place, time, circumstance, cause, manner, or degree.

Position

In Elefen, adverbs and adjectives have the same form. The difference is made clear by positioning: adjectives follow nouns; adverbs follow verbs and precede other words:

An adverb (or adverbial phrase) that modifies a verb (or the whole sentence) can also be placed at the beginning of the sentence. And if it doesn’t cause confusion, an adverb can also be placed after the object of the verb, or at the end of the sentence:

In some cases, an adverb preceding an adjective can be joined to it with a hyphen to clarify the meaning:

Another way to make an adverbial meaning clear is to say en modo or a grado:

Comparison

Comparison of adverbs is exactly like comparison of adjectives.

Primary adverbs

In addition to the huge number of adverbs derived from adjectives, Elefen has a few words that are only adverbs:

Tan is used in exclamations:

Quantifier adverbs

Certain quantifiers can be converted to adverbs, indicating the extent or degree to which something is the case.

No as an adverb means “not”, “to no extent”. It negates what it modifies. As a special case, when it modifies a verb, it precedes the verb:

Alga as an adverb means “some”, “somewhat”, “fairly”, “to some extent”:

Multe as an adverb means “much”, “very”, “to a large extent”:

Poca as an adverb means “little”, “not much”, “to only a small extent”:

Plu and min as adverbs mean “more” and “less”, “to a greater extent” and “to a lesser extent”:

La plu and la min as adverbs mean “most” and “least”, “to the maximum extent” and “to the minimum extent”:

Interrogative and relative adverbs

The following adverbs can be used in several ways:

They create direct and indirect questions, and they introduce relative clauses. As an extension of their relative use, they also behave like conjunctions introducing adverbial clauses – cuando, for example, is then short for a la tempo cuando. They can also be introduced by prepositions.

Cuando means “when” (a cual tempo, en cual tempo):

Do means “where” (a cual loca, en cual loca). When used with a verb of movement, do often means “to where”:

Como means “how” (en cual modo). It also serves as a preposition meaning “like”, “as”:

Cuanto means “how much” or “how many” (en cual cuantia). It also serves as a quantifier with the same meaning:

Perce means “why” (in various senses: par cual causa, per cual razona, con cual intende). The corresponding conjunctions are car (“because”, “for the reason that”) and afin (“so that”, “with the intention that”). The special word perce is always used, not per cual:

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