English: Grammatical Function of Adverb Phrases

English grammar is made up of eight parts of speech. In this lecture I shall discuss the grammatical functions of adverb phrases. First , what is an adverb? An adverb is a part of speech that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb.For instance hwen we say "The man walks very slowly" there is a modifier here. The modifiwer is 'very' which modifies another adverb in the sentence which is 'slowly'.

Now to look at the adverb phrases .The following sentences show example of adverb phrases. 1.They went home after lunch. 2.Obi stayed until dismissal. 3.They studied until afternoon. In sentencew number 1 above the adverb phrase is 'after lunch'. Here the adverb phrase modifies the verb 'went'. In number 2,we identify the adverb phrase as being'until dismissal'.The next point is to identify the grammatical function of the adverb phrase.The grammatical function here is that it modifies the verb 'stayed'. The sentence also contains an adverb phrase thus: 'until afternoon'. The next point is to identify the grammatical function of the adverb phrase.The function is that it modifies the verb 'studied'.