German adverbial phrases

An adverb is a word that modifies the meaning of a verb, and an adverbial phrase is a combination of words that perform the same function. The German language includes several different kinds of adverbial phrases.

Many adverbs are not derived from an adjective. Often they have very important meanings. For example, nicht, leider or gerne ("not", "unfortunately", "gladly").

The duration or the spatial extent of a verb's action can be expressed by a nominal expression in the accusative case.

Das Kind malte die ganze Zeit Bilder ("The child was painting pictures all the time")

Adverb formation is simpler in German than in most other languages. An adverb is simply the uninflected form of the adjective (or participle). This holds for the positive and comparative forms. The superlative is formed with the preposition am and the ending -en, e.g. am schönsten "most beautifully". Only a limited number of adverbs have a special elative form ending in -stens, e.g. schnellstens ('as fast as possible'), bestens ('very well').

The adverb can be used to describe actions, adjectives or other adverbs. Comparative and superlative forms are unusual in the last two situations.

In English, adverbs are usually distinguished from adjectives by the ending -ly. In German, they may be distinguished by their lack of declension, because adjectives in attributive position must be declined. Compare:

Unlike English, the German language distinguishes adverbs which qualify verbs or adjectives from those which qualify whole sentences. For the latter case, many German adjectives form a special adverb form ending in -erweise, e.g. glücklicherweise "luckily", traurigerweise "sadly" (from Weise = way, manner).

In the following two example sentences, the adverb lustig "funnily" qualifies the verb, while lustigerweise "funnily" qualifies the whole sentence:

As in the above example, English usually expresses the difference by placing the adverb which qualifies a sentence, in the beginning. In German, it can be placed in the beginning or elsewhere in the sentence.

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