Errors in the Use of Adjectives and Adverbs.

The first step in identifying modifiers is to read the sentence and look for descriptive single words. Once you've done this, you should then try to determine whether it is an adjective or an adverb.

1. An adjective describes a noun or pronoun and answers the questions: how many, which one, what kind?
   
   She is a good tennis player. (What kind of tennis player is she?)
   This is an easy exercise. (What kind of exercise is it?)
   
   
2. An adverb describes either a verb or an adjective and answers the questions: when, where, how, why, in what manner, and to what extent?
   
   She plays tennis well. (She plays tennis how?)
   This exercise is relatively easy. (How easy is it?)

An easy way to identify adverbs, or to distinguish them from adjectives, is to look at the ending. Most adverbs are formed by adding -ly to the adjective, such as: He worked quickly.

However, there are a few exceptions that you should memorize, if you're not already familiar with them. Here's the list too study.

	Exceptions The following irregular adverbs do not end in —ly. Adjective early fast good hard late Adverb early fast much little far hard (hardly means almost not) late (lately means recently)

After you've identified the word as an adjective or adverb, the next step is to determine whether it is used correctly. Look at the sentence below:

She is a real good swimmer.

This sentence contains a descriptive word modifying a noun, and another descriptive word modifying an adjective. Are these modifying words used correctly? It's hard to tell, because they're all grouped together. Break the sentence into parts:

As you can see, the word good modifiers swimmer. Good is an adjective, and swimmer is a noun. Adjectives modify nouns, so no error there. But notice the word real, used to modify the adjective good. Real is an adjective — and only adverbs modify adjectives.

In this version, the adjective real, which modifies the adjective good, is replaced with an adverb really. Note the difference: really is real with an —ly tacked on.

Incorrect: She is a real good swimmer.

Correct: She is a really good swimmer.

Incorrect: The new student speaks poor.

Correct: The new student speaks poorly.

This sentence contains one descriptive word modifying a noun, and one descriptive word modifying a verb. In both versions, the adjective "new" is used to modify the noun "student," which is correct. In the first version, however, the word "poor" is used to modify the verb "speaks". But "poor" is an adjective - and adjectives cannot modify verbs. Therefore, the second version correctly replaces the adjective "poor" with the adverb "poorly". Once again, the difference between the two is a mere, but necessary, "-ly".

Introduction

Adjectives and Adverbs with Sense Verbs