291. Words that are ordinarily used as nouns, are sometimes used as adverbs. These are the nouns that denote time, distance, measure of value or direction. They are added to verbs and adjectives to denote the definite time at which a thing took place, or to denote the extent of time or distance and the measure of value, of weight, number or age. They are sometimes used to indicate direction. For example:
- They were gone a year.
- He talked an hour.
- They will return next week.
- They went south for the winter.
- They traveled 100 miles.
- The wheat is a foot high.
- The man weighed 200 pounds.
In these sentences, the nouns, year, miles, hour, foot, week, pounds and south are used as adverbs. Remember every word is classified according to the work which it does in the sentence.
Exercise 6
Mark the adverbs in the following poem and determine what words they modify:
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS
One more Unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!