Yes, that is the shibboleth... but can you think of any examples besides the split infinitive? Didn't think so. The truth is, English grammar has very little Latin influence. In this case it is completely irrelevant: adverbial clauses are called adverbial clauses because they have the same function as an adverb. If an adverbial clause could be replaced by a single word, that word would be an adverb.

Anderew wrote on 25 May 2004:


Didn't you read Dylan's latest post? We don't have split infinitives in English, and, I've read, that there are no split infinitives in Latin because infinitives are all single words in Latin: "It is worth noting that it is impossible to split an infinitive in Latin, since the Latin infinitive is a single word."
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Split infinitive
I don't remember my Latin well enough to know about that, though. and there is a self-proclaimed expert on Latin on the Web who claims that most Latin verbs have 6 infinitives, at least three of which are two words:
(quote}
Most verbs have six infinitives:

1. Present Active
2. Present Passive
3. Perfect Active
4. Perfect Passive
5. Future Active
6. Future Passive (rare)

First Conjugation
(Present Active) amare (love)
(Pres. Passive) amari
(Perf. Act.) amavisse
(Perf. Pass.) amatus esse
(Fut. Act.) amaturus esse
(Fut. Pass.) amatum iri
(/quote)
http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/latin/qt/latininfinitive.htm

Just to reassure you that your knowledge of grammatical terminology and the facts of English grammar is flawless, I point out the following etymology from W3NID:
Main Entry:1adverb
Function:noun
Inflected Form:-s
Etymology:Middle French adverbe, from Latin adverbium (translation of Greek ***, literally, that which is said afterwards), from ad- + -verbium (from verbum word, verb) * more at EPIRRHEMA, WORD

And to add to that, I direct you to the following Web pages, which have a few words about the non-existent adverbs of Latin:

http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/Grammar/Latin-Adverbs.html

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/latin/p/latinadverbs.htm

and after reading a little about these words, you can tell me again how little English grammar has been influenced by the *terminology* created by philologists for Latin grammar. I made a very specific claim. Let's review it, shall we? Quoting myself from a few lines above

"We already know that the grammatical terminology for English is based primarily on the grammatical terminology of Latin and is, therefore, less tha(n) satisfactory."
Notice that the 6th and 7th words of my sentence are "grammatical terminology", and the claim made in the sentence is that the *terminology* used for English grammar is mostly derived from the terminology used for Latin grammar, *not* that Latin grammar has had any influence on English grammar, the straw-man argument you are trying to saddle me with. Please be precise and not deceptive when you make claims about what other people have said. Eithe3r you do not understand the difference between my claim and your inaccurate (false) paraphrase of my claim, or you are a deliberate misrepresenter. Or else you made an error of interpretation a difficult one to justify, though.

(quote from the ancienthistory.about.com site)
Adverbs as Particles: Adverbs, prepostions, conjunctions, and interjections are called particles. Adverbs in Latin, as in English, modify other words in the sentence, especially verbs. Adverbs also modify adjectives and other adverbs. In English, the ending "-ly," added to an adjective, makes it easy to identify many adverbs: He walked slowly - where slowly modifies the word walked, and where slow is the adjective.
Regular Formations of Adverbs from Adjectives:
In Latin, some adverbs are formed by adding an ending to an adjective. For first and second declension adjectives, a long -e replaces the ending. Instead of the adjective carus, -a, -um (dear), the adverb is care.
To adjectives from the third declension, ter is added. From the adjective fortis (brave), the adverb form is fortiter. The neuter accusative of some adjectives is also the adverb. Multum (many) becomes multum (much) as an adverb.
The formation of other adverbs is more complicated.

Some Adverbs of Time:
quando? when?
cum when
tum then
mox presently
iam already
dum while
iam pridem long ago
primum first
deinde next after
postremo finally
postquam as soon as
numquam never
saepe often
cotidie every day
nondum not yet
crebro frequently
pridie the day before
semper always
umqam ever
denique at last
Adverbs of Place:
hic here
huc hither
hinc from here
ibi there
eo thither, to there
illic there
quo whither
unde whence
ubi where
undique from everywhere
ibidem in the same place
eodem to the same place
quovis anywhere
usque all the way to
intro inwardly
nusquam nowhere
porro further on
citro to this side
Adverbs of Manner, Degree, or Cause:
quam how, as
tam so
quamvis however much
magis more
paene almost
valde greatly
cur why
quare why
ergo therefore
propterea because, on this account
ita so
sic so
ut as, how
vix hardly
Interrogative Particles:
whether: an, -ne, utrum, utrumne, num
whether not nonne, annon
whether at all numquid, ecquid
Negative Particles:
not non, haud, minime, ne, nec
lest ne
nor neque, nec
not only ... but also non modo ... verum/sed etiam not only not ... but not even non modo ... sed ne ... quidem not even ne ... quidem
if not si minus
so as not quo minus, quominus
why not? quin
Comparison of Adverbs: To form the comparative of an adverb (e.g. slower instead of slowly), take the neuter accusative of the adjectival form. There are also irregular comparative forms. The superlative is formed from the superlative of the adjective, ending in -e.

Source: Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar

Okay, Anderew. You are so anxious to demonstrate your grammatical expertise and claim the mantle of Master Grammarian that I'll give you the chance to demonstrate your brilliance. Please describe in **your own** 25 words or less *the* function of an adverb and in another 25 words or less *the* function of an adverbial clause of condition, either tentative (should-clause) or subjunctive (were-clause).

And then you can apologize to the group for being a puerile *** and a fraud to boot.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

Robert Lieblich wrote on 26 May 2004:

Thank you for pointing out all these borrowings, Bob. You have contributed a great deal to the Franke Knowledge Fund (hereinafter "FKF"). I will send you a certified receipt along with an IRS-certified verification of my non-profit status so that you can deduct this major contribution from next year's knowledge taxes. And when Ashcroft's agents corner you and ask about the shadowy Abu Franke Brigade and its plans for forthcoming deployment of its stockpiles of WMD (that's "Words of Mis-Description" and *not* what you might have initially believed it to mean) which surely must be hidden in a variable 4th- dimension wrinkle in the space-time continuum somewhere in the vicinity of NYC's Port Authority bus terminal tell 'em you don't know me, or that I am merely a wrinkle in cyberspace, or something equally plausible (clausible?).


Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

Are you forgetting that English once had all four cases? Maybe the offender is Old English rather than Latin. (But that kinda takes the fun out of it, huh?)

AB wrote on 27 May 2004:


Is this what you meant about dealing later with what Bob said about Latin and English? Tell, us, AB, do you also profess to be expert enough on German grammar to know whether the syntactic analysis of that language is reasonably based on the realities of German or whether it, too, was forced into an ill-fitting Latin bed?
What say you, Rey?

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.