The episode of Linguists’ Forum of 30th August, 2025 encourages candidates for WASSCE and NECO to avoid stating the type of adverbial phrase that is given to any adverbial expression. As foregrounded in the episode, if the given expression is an adverbial phrase of time, candidates should write “adverbial phrase,” leaving out the “of time” part of it. If the candidates, by mistake or in error, wrote “adverbial phrase of place” instead of “adverbial phrase of time,” they would lose the marks allocated to the question. On the other hand, if they stopped at “adverbial phrase,” they would receive the full mark assigned to the question. This is not different in the case of adverbial clause. Based on this relationship, this episode extends the earlier discussion on adverb and how the knowledge of the part of speech can aid the understanding of adverbial clause as a higher grammatical unit in this episode.
Adverbs versus Adverbial Clauses
Traditionally, an adverb is described as a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb, as in:
1. Audu eats “hurriedly” (It modifies the verb “eats”).
2. The task was “extremely” difficult (It modifies the adjective “difficult”).
3. The lady composed the song “quite” interestingly (It modifies the adverb “interestingly”).
While modifying verbs, adjectives or another adverbs, adverbs answer questions about how (or how much), when, where or why. Depending on the questions they answer, adverbs can be of manner (fast, quickly), degree (quite, very), time (yesterday, now), place (here, there), frequency (regularly, frequently), etc. It should be noted that each of the examples given for the adverbs is a word. That is what differentiates an adverb from an adverbial clause. An adverbial clause is a group of words that has a subject and a (finite) verb, which is used as part of a sentence to perform the function of an adverb. In essence, adverbial clauses answer the same questions that adverbs answer – how (manner), how much/often (degree/frequency), where (place), when (time) and why (reason), as demonstrated in:
4. The host treated the guests “well” (adverb).
5. The host treated the guests “in a way they will never forget” (adverbial clause).
6. My uncle will visit me “tomorrow” (adverb).
7. My uncle will visit me “whenever he is in town” (adverbial clause).
8. She trusted her husband “totally” (adverb).
9. She trusted her husband “as much as she could” (adverbial clause).
10. We left the office “yesterday” (adverb).
11. We left the office “when the bell rang” (adverb clause).
12. The principal kept the record “here” (adverb).
13. The principal kept the record “where his staff could not find it” (adverbial clause).
14. Titi and Tunde were beaten “mercilessly” (adverb)
15. Titi and Tunde were beaten “because they misbehaved” (adverbial clause).
For practical purposes, let us consider the grammatical names and functions of the adverbial clauses in the following sentences.
16. The host treated the guests “the best way they could” (Grammatical Name: Adverbial Clause; Function: It modifies the verb “treated”).
17. My uncle will visit me “whenever he is in town” (Grammatical Name: Adverbial Clause; Function: It modifies the verb phrase “will visit”).
18. She trusted her husband “because he loved her” (Grammatical Name: Adverbial Clause; Function: It modifies the verb “trusted”).
19. We left the office “when the Governor arrived from Lagos” (Grammatical Name: Adverbial Clause; Function: It modifies the verb “left”).
20. The principal kept the record “where his staff could not find it” (Grammatical Name: Adverbial Clause; Function: It modifies the verb “kept”).
16. Titi and Tunde were beaten “because they misbehaved” (Grammatical Name: Adverbial Clause; Function: It modifies the verb phrase “were beaten”).
Lateef Iyanda Kugbayi, PhD
Senior Lecturer
Department of English Language
Zamfara State University
Talata Mafara
lateefkugbayi19@gmail.com/+2347032985052