Tham khảo tài liệu 'longman grammar of spoken and written english part 42', ngoại ngữ, ngữ pháp tiếng anh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | Syntactic roles of adverbs 551 As with adjectives as head the degree adverb in all of these constructions can also occur without the following degree complement construction for example You shouldn t go to bed too early conv Adverbs standing alone In conversation and direct reports of dialogue in other registers adverbs can stand alone as structurally unconnected elements see and and even as complete utterances. In some cases the adverbs are related to ellipted forms of previous sentences as in The kitten s gone crazy. No totally I mean it. Totally and utterly conv . The kitten has gone totally and utterly A Getting there. B Yeah. A Slowly but surely conv . I am getting there slowly but surely. Adverbs as utterances can also serve to express or emphasize agreement or concurrence A What you could afford you had. B Exactly. Exactly conv A In other words the skills of a counselor B Yes. Yes. C Definitely. Definitely conv Adverbs can also be used as questions. Often these adverbs are stance adverbials of actuality or style of speaking A You can still vote if you lost it. B Really A They should have your name on the roster conv A You re supposed to put the lid on otherwise it won t switch off. B Seriously A Yeah conv A Have you got any on that B No. A Honestly B Honestly conv Some of the above examples illustrate that adverbs can serve not only to pose questions but also to answer them. Other examples include A It s warm isn t it. By the radiator. B Probably conv A Are they that good B Definitely. Only band 1 want to see playing in the world conv Again most adverbs answering questions are stance adverbs. 552 ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS Semantic categories of adverbs Importance of context in the semantics of adverbs As with adjectives and verbs many adverbs have meanings that vary with context of use. First some adverbs have both literal and more metaphorical meanings. For example perfectly can be used in its literal .
