TeachingEnglish
Adjective or adverb
Submitted by annakuzmina on 12 October, 2011 - 18:10
Help me, please!!!
"... he found the way of successfully freezing food..." Why should we use here an adverb but not an adjective "successful"?
Is there any rule how to define what we should use????
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here the adverb succesfully modifies the verb freezing.
An adjective modifies a noun.
An adverb modifies a verb or an adjective.
Clare
Hi Annakuzmina,
'freezing' in this context is used as a verb, 'successfully' modifies the verb. You could say: '... he found a successful way of freezing food'. 'a way' means 'a method' and is a noun, the adjective 'successful' is used to modify the noun.
As a very 'general' rule, adverbs modify verbs, adjectives modify nouns.
Hope this helps.
adverbs add meaning to the verb,adjecives and other adverbs,and 'ly' is added at the end .
As I know... adjective is used in two alternatives, they are :
1. It is placed after noun,eg : Charming girls, sexy lips, etc.
2. It is used after subject ( don't forget use tobe, ok), eg : Tukul is funny, Sby is confuse, etc
Meanwhile the use of adverb can be placed at the end of the sentence for example :
1. Jhon dewey clasifies the books carefully.
2. They do their job happily.
or we can put the adverb before noun for example :
1. He make a formula of successfully fermented cassava.
Freezing here is not a verb but an adjective which modifies the noun food , successfully is an adverb that modifies the adjective freezing. If we say he found a way of freezing food then in this case freezing is a verb .
To Edutechguy:
Actually, freezing is still a verb here.
The adjective form of the word freeze that is used with food is frozen (frozen food). Freezing as an adjective would be used to describe general temperature (eg. It's freezing today, isn't it?) Here is a breakdown with both freezing and frozen to show each part of speech:
(n) (prep) (verb-ing) (adj) (n)
(n) (prep) (verb-ing) (n)
Note that it does get a bit confusing at this level, because making and freezing in these examples are non-finite verbs that are embedded in a prepositional phrase (headed by 'of') which in turn is embedded in the noun group (headed by 'way') as a qualifier.
To annakuzmina:
Redperil's response is simple, clear and accurate (notice how he even included the 'general' bit)!
Freezing is a verb in this sentence, just as I am walking uses the verb, to walk. It is, in a sense, a gerund, which is still a verb. He is freezing the food or has found a way of freezing the food still qualifies the word as a verb.
"... he found the way of successfully freezing food..." Why should we use here an adverb but not an adjective "successful"?
In this sentence " Freezing is a gerund and food is the object to the gerund "freezing" ; and "successfully" here is an adverb. In normal, it is putting after food. but if so, we can confuse whether it modifies the verb" found "or the gerund " freezing, so it should be put before the gerund.
Hi Ngo So,
Freezing isn't a gerund here. The V-ing form serves several different purposes, including:
In the case above, it is a present participle.
A very good question
I always say that Adjectives are like salt and pepper. They add flavour to nouns and are used before them,eg. beautiful girl
Adverbs describe verbs and are used after them. Adverbs tell how, when or where an action takes place. Many adverbs end in-ly,e.g. the girl sings beautifully
Verbs smell, sound, taste, look are followed byadjectives, e.g. smell good.
Thanks!