Adverbs
Latin ad meaning "at", "added to"
Latin verbum means "word" in general, not just "verb".
While adjectives make the meaning of nouns and pronouns more exact, adverbs add to the meaning of all else and clarify how, when, why....
We've seen so far:
- πολλάκις often (πολλάκις στενάζει, poor thing, he often groans)
- αἰεί always (αἰεὶ πονεῖ, he's always working)
- μόλις, with difficulty; reluctantly (μόλις φέρει τὸν λίθον ἐκ τοῦ ἀγροῦ he carries the stone out of the field with difficulty, or reluctantly)
- οὕτω(ς) in this way, thus (μὴ οὕτω χαλεπὸς ἴσθι, don't be so harsh)
- βραδέως slowly (ὁ δοῦλος βραδέως βαδίζει, the slave walks slowly)
- ταχέως quickly (ταχέως, ταχέως, φησί ὁ δεσπότης, quickly, quickly, says the master)
- ἀληθῶς, truly, really
- σπανίως, rarely, seldom
These last 5 show us a pattern for forming adverbs. In English we add -ly to the adjective, in Greek we take the genitive plural form, the one in -ων or -ῶν,
drop the -ν and replace it with -ς : |
| τῶν καλῶν ἵππων |
καλῶς, beautifully |
| τῶν ἀνδρείων Ἀθηναίων |
ἀνδρείως, bravely |
| τῶν σκαιῶν δούλων |
σκαιῶς, clumsily |
- Do you learn Greek ῥᾳδίως ?
ῥᾳδία ἐστὶν ἡ φωνὴ ἡ ἑλληνική;
ἆρα ῥᾳδίως μανθάνεις τὴν ἑλληνικὴν φωνήν;
- ἡ φωνή, τῆς φωνῆς - voice, sound, word, language (all related!): think of phonetics (= to do with sounds used in language), grammaphone, phonograph ..... )
ἆρα χαλεπῶς φέρει ὁ Ξανθίας τοὺς τοῦ δεσπότου λόγους; (like Latin: aegre ferre, to resent)
|