ADV: adverb
Definition
Adverbs (副詞 / fu3ci4) typically modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs for such categories as time, manner, degree, frequency, or negation.
- 你 慢慢/ADV 講/VERB / nei5 man6man6*2 gong2 “Speak slowly.”
- 佢 非常之/ADV 開心/ADJ / _keoi5 fei1soeng4zi1 hoi1sam1 “She is extremely happy.”
- 佢哋 好/ADV 早/ADV 起身/VERB / keoi5dei5 hou2 zou2 hei2san1 “They get up very early.”
Some adverbs also modify clauses with conjunctive and discursive functions.
- 佢 反而 冇 同 我 講 / keoi5 faan2ji4 mou5 tung4 ngo5 gong2 “He didn’t tell me, however.”
- 今日 當然 冇 人 喇 ／ gam1jat6 dong1yin4 mou5 jan4 laa1 “Of course nobody’s here today.”
A small number of adverbs may also modify numerals and determiners, or nouns and pronouns.
- 差唔多 五千 / caa1m4do1 ng5cin1 “almost five thousand”
- 連 佢 都 唔 去 嘑 / lin4 keoi5 dou1 m4 heoi3 laa3 “Even he’s not going.”
There is a closed subclass of pronominal adverbs that refer to circumstances in context, rather than naming them directly; similarly to pronouns, these can be categorized as interrogative, demonstrative, etc. These should be treated as adverbs when modifying a predicate, but otherwise some of them can function as a nominal in the syntax, in which case they should be tagged PRON.
- 你 點解 唔 來 / nei5 dim2gaai2 m4 lei4 “Why aren’t you coming?”
- 我 係 咁樣 做 嘅 / ngo5 hai6 gam2joeng2 zou4 ge3 “I do it like this.”
Note that although some adverbs express temporal information, many common time expressions (e.g., 今日 / gam1jat6 ‘today’, 舊年 / gau6nin4*2 “last year”, 夜晚 / je6maan5 “night”) are actually nouns and should be tagged NOUN.
Examples
- Manner adverbs
- 慢慢 / maan6maan6*2 “slowly”, 互相 ／ wu6soeng1 “mutually”
- Temporal, aspectual, and modal adverbs - 就嚟 / zau6lei4 “about to”, 喺度 / hai2dou6 “in progress”, 寧可 / ning4ho2 “would rather”, 可能 / ho2nang4 “possibly” (NB: also ADJ “possible” and NOUN “possibility”)
- Conjunctive adverbs - 所以 / so2ji5 “therefore”, 反而 / faan2ji4 “however”, 然後 / jin4hau6 “afterwards”, 噉 / gam2 “then; in that case”, 就 / zau6 “then; as a result”
- Frequency and duration adverbs - 成日 / sing4jat6 “often”, 一陣 / jat1zan6 “for a little while”
- Negation adverbs - 唔 / m4 “not”, 未 / mei6 “not yet”
- Numeral-modifying adverbs - 大概 / daai6koi3 “approximately”, 差唔多 / caa1m4do1 “almost”, 至少 / zi6siu2 “at least”, 最多 / zeoi3do1 “at most”
- Noun-modifying adverbs
- 連 / lin4 “even”
- Pronominal adverbs - 點樣 / dim2joeng2 “how”, 噉樣 / gam2joeng2 “this way, like this, thus”, 咁 / gam3 “so”, 點解 / dim2gaai2 “why”
- Other - 都 / dou1 “also; all”, 亦都 / jik6dou1 “also”, 先至 / sin1zi3 “then and only then”, 越嚟越 jyut6lei4jyut6 “more and more”, 當然 / dong1jin4 “of course” - “for example”, “such as”: 譬如 / pei3jyu4, 譬如話 / pei3jyu4waa6, 例如 / lai3jyu4 - “like”: 好似 / hou2ci2 (note this can also function as a main verb; an example of the adverbial usage is 好似 佢 琴日 噉 講… / hou2ci2 keoi5 kam4jat6 gam2 gong2 “Like he said yesterday…”)
ADV in other languages: [am] [ar] [bg] [bxr] [ca] [ckb] [cop] [cs] [cu] [da] [de] [el] [en] [es] [et] [eu] [fa] [fi] [fo] [fr] [ga] [gl] [got] [grc] [he] [hi] [hr] [hu] [id] [it] [ja] [kk] [kmr] [ko] [la] [lv] [mr] [nl] [no] [pl] [pt] [ro] [ru] [sa] [sk] [sla] [sl] [so] [sr] [sv] [swl] [ta] [tr] [ug] [uk] [u] [urj] [ur] [vi] [yue] [zh]