Grammar in EAP

Adverbial Group

Exercise

An adverbial group is typically a group with an adverb as its head. That adverb is likely to be modified either before the adverb (pre-modification) or after the adverb (post-modification or qualification) or both. For example, in the adjverbial group “more fluently than before“, “fluently” is an adverb in the head position. It is pre-modified by “more” and post-modified or qualified by “than before“.

Identify the adverbial groups in the following sentences, distinguishing the pre– and post-modifiers.

For example

It spreads so fast that large numbers of individuals in the population inherit the gene in double dose.

1. In some people cure will be achieved more easily than in others.
2. The ovum finds it difficult to make its way to the uterus and may arrive too late for successful implantation.
3. Weismann pointed out that in most animals the cells which are going to give rise to germ cells are set aside very early in development.
4. We can see easily enough that in a competitive world social selection for a selfish maximization of an individual’s capacity to reproduce will result in the predominance of certain traits in a population.
5. This treatment very quickly caught on.
6. Words such as peto contentus sis seem to have been used so widely that they soon raised no doubts or difficulties of interpretation.
7. It is also clear from the notebooks that Marx had read much more widely than that.
8. However, the research progressed too slowly for it to be useful.
9. It was rated very highly as a causal prophylactic.
10. Once you have obtained some professional advice on weight training, you can obtain small weights quite cheaply for use at home.

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