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408. Many adverbs are formed from adjectives, nouns, and pronouns.

1. Adverbs derived from Adjectives.

We saw, §§ 22, 23, that some adjectives appear to be used adverbially, having lost the final e, which in Anglo-Saxon was the distinctive mark of an adverb formed from an adjective. These are chiefly words of Anglo-Saxon origin: as, clean, fast, hard, ill, late, long, loud, right, sore, soft, thick, wide, wrong. We shall discuss these severally.

We also saw the origin of the termination -ly, which, though originally the mark of an adjective, came to be regarded as an adverbial suffix. In Anglo-Saxon -lic was an adjective termination, and -lice an adverbial. We have still in English some adjectives ending in -ly, as god-ly, love-ly, lone-ly; and to these we cannot add another -ly to form adverbs. The word 'godly' has an adverbial force in the phrase, 'to live soberly, righteously, and godly.'

409. We shall now consider those words, in which the adjective and adverbial forms coincide, in modern English : clean. A.-S. clan, adjective; clane, adverb. The adverbial use of clean, in the sense of entirely,' is found in the authorised version of the Scriptures: as,

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Is his mercy clean gone for ever, doth his promise fail for evermore?-Psalm lxxvii. 8.

The same usage still prevails in some provincial dialects. fast. A.-S. fæst, adjective; fæste, adverb. The English fast is used as an adjective and an adverb: 'It was fast,' 'He ran fast.'

hard. A.-S. heard, adjective; hearde, adverb. In English, hard is an adjective, and both hard and hardly are adverbs, but with a difference of meaning. Hard means 'with force or severity,' as, 'He hits hard;' but hardly means scarcely. Some persons, wishing to be accurate, say, 'He hits hardly,' meaning 'He hits hard.' But 'He hits hardly' might mean 'He scarcely hits.'

ill or evil. A.-S. yfel, adjective; yfele, adverb. In English, evil and ill are used as adjectives; and ill as an adverb. The form evilly is sometimes found, but is not generally approved.

late. A.-S. læt or lat, adjective; late or late, adverb. The English late is used as an adjective, and as an adverb: 'He was late,' 'He came late.' The form lately is used in the sense of 'recently.'

long. A.-S. lang or long, adjective; lange or longe, adverb. In English the form longly is never used.

loud. A.-S. hlud, adjective; hlude, adverb. The English loud is used as an adjective, and as an adverb: as,

Curses, not loud, but deep.-Macbeth, v. 3.

And the singers sang loud.-Nehemiah xii. 42.

The three forms loud, aloud, and loudly, are used as adverbs:

right. A.-S. riht, adjective; rihte, adverb. In English, the forms right, aright, and rightly are used as adverbs. soft. A.-S. seft or soft, adjective; sefte or softe, adverb. In poetry, the adverbial use of soft is common: as, ' And soft he said,' Soft sighed the flute.' In prose, softly is more common.

sore.

A.-S. sur, 'sore, painful,' adjective; sare, sorely, painfully,' adverb. In older English, sore is used adverbially as, 'He wept sore.'

thick. A.-S. thic, adjective; thicce, adverb. In English, the forms thick and thickly are used as adverbs.

wide. A.-S. wid, adjective; wide, adverb. The word is used as an adverb in this passage:

Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?—Much
Ado, iv. 1.

wrong. Horne Tooke derives this word from wrung, the
participle of the verb wring, and explains it wrung or
wrested from the "right" or "ordered " line of con-
duct.' See Diversions of Purley, ii. 91, 101. Mr.
Wedgwood, in his Dictionary of English Etymology,
gives a similar explanation. He says wrong is 'what
is wrung or turned aside from the right or straight
way to the desired end.' He compares the Danish
vrænge, 'to twist;' vrang, 'wrong; and Old Norse
rangr, 'wry,'' crooked,' unjust.'
Wrong is used adverbially in the following passages:—
Portia. You must take your chance;
And either not attempt to choose at all,

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Or swear, before you choose, if you choose wrong,
Never to speak to lady afterward

In way of marriage; therefore be advised.

I lose your company.

Merchant of Venice, ii. 1.

Ibid. iii. 2.

In choosing wrong,

2. Adverbs derived from Nouns.

410. In many languages, nouns in an oblique case are used as adverbs. For example, the noun home is used adverbially, in the literal sense, 'to go home' (aller à la maison), and in a figurative sense, to denote thoroughly,'' entirely; ' as,

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It is true that our home appears to be the same in form as the nominative home. But a reference to the Latin shows the distinction. The nominative in Latin is domus, but our home answers to the accusative domum, and our at home to domi.

Vossius observes of domi focique in Terence, Eunuchus, act iv. scene 7, that without doubt they are genitives used adverbially.' And Donatus goes further, calling not only these genitives, but accusatives and ablatives, adverbs. He thinks that Romæ, Romam, Româ, ignorantly considered nouns, are adverbs of place: Rome, Romam, Româ, sunt adverbia loci, quæ imprudentes putant nomina. In loco, ut sum Rome; de loco, ut Româ venio; ad locum, ut Romam pergo.'-Sir John Stoddart, Universal Grammar, p. 106.

Professor Key thinks, that domi is not a genitive, but a dative in 7, with the meaning at;' so also, humi, 'on the ground,' belli, ‘in war,' ruri, 'in the country.' He considers that this dative, denoting place, [hence termed by some grammarians the locative,'] maintained itself in certain words, in spite of the increasing tendency to express this idea by the preposition in and an ablative. See Latin Grammar, § 114, and compare § 952 of the same Grammar.

411. We seem to have genitive cases in the words eftsoons ('soon after'), outwards, unawares, and needs, in the phrase 'he needs must go.' Sometimes may be a genitive singular, or plural objective.

else,

The following are possibly genitives :—

old English el-es, ell-es, el-s

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The terminations wise and ways are liable to be confounded. The Anglo-Saxon wise is a noun signifying 'manner;' hence otherwise means 'in another manner.'

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a road.'

We find always, noways, and nowise. Dr. Adams, Elements of the English Language, § 396, says, that the form ways is not connected with the word way, But compare the German alle-wege, 'all-ways,' with the French toujours, 'all-days,' and tous les jours, all the days.'

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412. Whilom. A.-S. hwilum, hwylum, hwilon. This is considered to be a dative plural from the nouns hwil, hwile, 'a while, time,' from which our adverb a-while, 'for a time,' is probably derived. According to this view, whilom signifies at whiles,'' at times.'

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seldom. A.-S. seld, seldan, seldon. Whether the termination -om in this instance marks a dative, may be doubted. Seld is used in composition by Shakespeare:

Seld-shown flamens

Do press among the popular throngs, and puff

To win a vulgar station.

Coriolanus, ii. 1.

413. Beside, between, and because are respectively 'by side,' 'by twain,' (i. e. ' near two '), and 'by cause,' also used in the sense of by reason.'

The s in besides is not easy to explain. Dr. Adams considers it as the mark of an old genitive besid-es. But this is very doubtful.

3. Adverbs having the prefix a.

414. The prefix a is of different origin in different adverbs, and demands very close examination.

1. Sometimes it represents the A.-S. preposition an, in, on, 'in,' 'on;' not only with substantives, as a-bed, a-board, a-shore; but also with adjectives, as a-broad, a-loud.

2. Sometimes it represents the preposition of, as a-new,' of new,' de novo compare of late.'

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3. It also represents the A.-S. participial prefix ge, Early English ye: as a-drift.

4. It stands for the indefinite article a, as a-while, ' for a time.'

415. We shall take examples of each.

1. a representing the preposition an, in, on, 'in,' 'on.' Prefixed to nouns.

a-back, a-bed, a-blaze, a-board, a-breast, a-fire, a-foot, a-gape, a-ground, a-head, a-jar, a-loft, a-shore, a-slant, a-sleep, a-stern, a-stride.

We may remark that several of these are nautical terms, and others might be quoted, as a-midships, a-thwartships, &c. For the sake of illustration, we add the following notes:a-back. A.-S. on bæc, ' on back.'

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'Get thee behind me.'-Mark viii. 33.

a-jar. This is explained as on char, 'on the turn,'' half open,' from A.-S. cer, cyr, 'a turn,' verb ceorran, cerran, 'to turn.'

The form on char is used by Gawain Douglas, in his Translation of Virgil:

See Wedgwood, Dictionary of English Etymology,‘ajar.'

Ane schot wyndo unschet ane litel on char.

German, in der Luft; Scottish,

a-loft. On loft,' up in the air.'

in the lift; so Burns:

'It is the moon, I ken her horn,

That's blinking in the lift sae hie,
She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,
But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee!'

a-live. This word appears in older English as on iyve, on liue; as,

By God, quoth he, that wol I tel as bliue,

For prouder woman is there none on liue.
Chaucer, Troilus.

Inquire whether live is here a noun ‘life,' or an adjective as in the phrase 'on loud.'

We find the prefix before adjectives in a-broad, a-loud, a thwart.

The use of the preposition in or on with adjectives is not

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