31.227 Adverbs

Adverbs are able to modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Make sure you read Croy's discussion of adverbs in section 227 carefully.

Adverbs are very strange words in Greek, as they are in all the Indo-European languages. Unlike verbs, nouns, and adjectives, which change their endings based on their function in the sentence, adverbs are indeclinable. They do not change their form.

Many Greek adverbs (but not all of them) are formed from adjectives. There are many different ways that adverbs can be formed from adjectives, and there is no rule to predict which form will be used for any given adjective. Croy introduces the -ως which is commonly used to create adverbs. In addition, there are adverbs that look like the neuter accusative forms of the corresponding adjective (see, for example, the comparative and superlative adverbs discussed below).

Like adjectives, adverbs can also be put into the comparative degree and into the superlative degree. In English, we do not actually have adverbs in different degrees. Instead, in English, we use the words "more" and "most" to express these different degrees (so, for example, we say "more quickly" instead of "quicklier," and we say "most quickly" instead of "quickliest"). Greek, on the other hand, does have a way of changing the ending of an adverb in order to change its degree. The comparative adverb looks like the neuter accusative singular form of the corresponding comparative adjective, and the superlative adverb looks like the neuter accusative plural form of the corresponding superlative adjective.