Adverbs

Grammar Greek, thanks for your asnwer . I was surprised by a sentence in my grammar book which said that most adjectives aren't compared.
I am not thinking about any particular example but about the rule that my book was quoting. I thought that it may be a mistake since, as far as I know, most adverbs can be compared with more/most and are inflected for comparison, e.g. fast-faster-fastest. I started to anaylse the rule, I found adverbs that indeed cannot be compared (now, then, almost, always, today), but still I am not sure if the sentence was OK. It said "most adverbs". If it said "some adverbs cannot be compared" than I would understand.

Best wishes
Magda

Grammar Geek wrote:

Fast/faster is a great examle of one that can be put into the comparitive. But "more happily" is not a comparative form of the word "happily."

Why not?

Grammar Geek wrote:

Fast/faster is a great examle of one that can be put into the comparitive. But "more happily" is not a comparative form of the word "happily." I wonder if we can come up with a rule? Are there ANY adverbs that end in -ly that we can make a comparitive form out of?

Hi GG

Practically all adverbs ending in -ly can be used in the comparative:

I drive slowly.
My brother drives more slowly than me/I.
John Brown drives (the) most slowly.

The comparison is pretty much the same as that of long adjectives like difficult:

Math is difficult.
Spanish is more difficult than math.
Physics is the most difficult subject for him.

There are three ways of forming comparatives and superlatives in English and they don't always consist of just one word.

Cheers
CB

Yes, J Lewis, that's exactly what I meant: single-word forms. Of course "more happily" is comparative, but "happilier" as a single-word form doesn't work. Comparative forms of the WORD happily don't exist.