Other examples are:—

Under this head come certain adverbs of degree used to modify adjectives.

That dark, light, etc., are adverbs in this use appears from the fact that they answer the question “How?” Thus,—“His eyes were blue.” “How blue?” “Dark blue.”

Note. In the oldest English many adverbs ended in -ë, as if formed directly from adjectives by means of this ending. Thus, the adjective for hot was hāt, side by side with which was an adverb hātë (dissyllabic), meaning hotly. In the fourteenth century this distinction was still kept up. Thus, Chaucer used both the adjective hōt and the dissyllabic adverb hōtë, meaning hotly. Between 1400 and 1500 all weak final e’s disappeared from the language. In this way the adverb hotë, for example, became simply hot. Thus these adverbs in -ë became identical in form with the corresponding adjectives. Hence in the time of Shakspere there existed, in common use, not only the adjective hot, but also the adverb hot (identical in form with the adjective but really descended from the adverb hotë). One could say not only “The fire is hot” (adjective), but “The fire burns hot” (adverb of manner).

The tendency in modern English has been to confine the form without ending to the adjective use and to restrict the adverbial function to forms in -ly. Thus, a writer of the present time would not say, in prose, “The fire burns hot,” but “The fire burns hotly.” Nevertheless, a number of the old adverbs without ending still remain in good use, and must not be regarded as erroneous.

In poetry, moreover, such adverbs are freely employed; as,—“The boy like a gray goshawk stared wild.” [In prose: stared wildly.]

For adverbial phrases, see [§§ 41–42], [475].