First, please accept our apologies for the late response. A tech glitch has hidden this folder from all logged-in Manhattan Prep staff since the New Year, so I didn’t see this question until now.yo4561 Wrote:I know this is simple, but I struggle sometimes with differentiating between adverbs and adjectives.
It's often not that simple at all. I think one reason is that adverbs don't just modify verbs; adverbs can actually modify adjectives!
yo4561 Wrote:Specifically, I realize adverbs can tell you how much (e.g. "just") and adjectives have a similar function with terms that impose limits (e.g. "each").
This struggle is amplified when I think about the meaning of a SC question. Is there any advice for sorting out my adverbs versus adjectives woes? I've been generally thinking along the lines of "-ly ending" is an adverb and "-ed ending" is an adjective, but I realize that I must understand where these words are placed in the sentence to decipher what they are modifying. However, it seems that sometimes you just have to know if it is an adjective or adverb (e.g. I was confused about supposed versus supposedly in the Irish example below in which you really had to know whether supposed was an adjective or adverb to decipher meaning). Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Example I am referencing:
“Max’s grandma, from whom he inherited his smile, is his supposedly Irish ancestor.”
I think it's probably too simplistic to just focus on the -ed or -ly ending. It's the norm for adverbs to end in -ly, but plenty of adverbs don't (e.g. already, even, just), and in fact there are non-adverbs that end in -ly (e.g. stately, melancholy, bully, scholarly). So I think you are right to shift your thinking toward placement and meaning.
In the example you gave, "supposedly" is the typical -ly adverb. If you didn't know that (or wanted to check your logic), it could help to note that "supposed" is also a descriptive word that exists, so of the two, the -ly one would probably be the adverb. That sentence has an example of an adverb modifying an adjective: The ancestor is supposedly Irish.
