THE ADVERBIAL NOUN
=Function.=--Questions like _how long?_ _how far?_ _when?_ _where?_
are often answered by adverbs, phrases, or clauses; but they may be
answered by nouns, as in the following sentences,--“_A while_ she
paused; no answer came.”--_Scott._ “We are transported _a hundred and
fifty years_ back.”--_Macaulay._ “_Every moment_ they came nearer.
_Next door_ lives a carpenter.”--_Miss Mitford._
It is clear that the italicized expressions are used adverbially,
modifying respectively the verb _paused_, the adverb _back_, the verb
_came_, and the verb _lives_.
The base-word of each of these expressions is a noun, called an
adverbial noun. It is immaterial to us what case this noun is in, but a
study of Old English teaches us that it is in the objective case, while
a further proof is that we frequently employ a preposition before it.
The adverbial noun usually denotes measure of some sort, of time,
distance, space, weight, value, etc.
* * * * *
=What the Adverbial Noun modifies.=--1. A verb; as, “A man could have
found places where he could have jumped three thousand feet in one
descent to the valley.”--_King._
2. An adjective; as, “He was nearly a head taller than myself.”
The adjective _worth_ is always modified by an adverbial noun answering
the question _how much?_ and frequently by others answering various
other questions; as, “Wheat worth a dollar a bushel last week is
selling now for eighty cents.” Notice that the modifiers of _worth_
differ in closeness of relation; the closest is _dollar_, the next
_bushel_, and the next _week_. This is not determined by position.
3. An adverb; as, “The oldest sergeant present stepped a pace forward.”
4. A phrase; as, “Centuries before this the Chinese had printed books
by means of carved wooden blocks.”
5. A clause; as, “His room is hung round with cases of them, each
impaled on a pin driven through him something as they used to bury
suicides.”--_Holmes._
In such a sentence as, “He is forty years of age,” it is somewhat
difficult to determine whether _years_ modifies _of age_ or _of age_
modifies _years_. This arises perhaps from the fact that neither
_years_ nor _of age_ makes a good base for the complement of _is_. He
is not forty years, neither does the sentence mean that he is of age.
We must say that _is_ is completed by the expression _forty years of
age_, used adjectively and having the meaning of one word. If we wish
to go further and analyze this complement, we say that _of age_ is the
base, meaning _old_, and that this phrase is modified by the adverbial
noun _forty years_.
It is the same in the sentence, “We often read about precipices that
are thousands of feet in descent.”--_King._ The verb _are_ is completed
by the group of words, _thousands of feet in descent_, having the
meaning of _very high_. Of this group _in descent_ is the base modified
by the adverbial noun _thousands of feet_.
A common construction is found in the sentence, “About two weeks ago I
looked down from the Mariposa trail into the tremendous fissure of the
Sierras.” In analyzing the adverbial element _about two weeks ago_,
we find the base-word to be the adverb _ago_; this is modified by the
adverbial noun _about two weeks_, the base of which is _weeks_ modified
first by _two_ and then by _about_.
NOTES.--1. Many prefer to consider _about_ a preposition, governing
_weeks_, and _ago_ an adjective modifying _weeks_. But in the familiar
expression _long ago_, _ago_ is said to be an adverb, and its use
seems to us the same in the expression _two weeks ago_. It is a case
where use rather than derivation should determine the part of speech.
_About_ has the same relation to _two weeks_ that _almost_ would have
in the same position.
2. A further expression denoting degree, which may well be noticed
here, is found in the sentences,--“John is good and strong”; “She
sailed good and fast.” In the first sentence it is not the author’s
intention to give two attributes of John; the sentence means that John
is very strong. In analyzing the sentence it is best not to separate
the group of words _good and strong_. In the following sentence from
Stevenson,--“But I was rare and hungry,” the substitution of _rare_
for _good_ makes the sentence mean,--“I was unusually hungry.”
Exercise 36
Dispose of all nouns used adverbially in these sentences.
1. A few years later, Prof. S. F. B. Morse, an American, invented the
electric telegraph.
2. If you had been able to keep awake only a year or two longer,
you would not have been so wholly surprised by our industrial
system.--_Bellamy._
3. He is the chieftain who looms a head above all his
people.--_Boyesen._
4. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or
two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as
death.--_Carlyle._
5. The snow lay half an inch deep on the brown tiles.--_Howells._
6. Dante died only seven years before Chaucer was born.--_Lowell._
7. Soon his face was worth going far to see.--_J. L. Allen._
8. The desolate and splintered walls of Horeb and Sinai are not a
quarter so high.--_King._
9. Some years ago I was traveling by railway, no matter whence or
whither.--_Froude._
10. He was exactly five feet six inches in height and six feet five
inches in circumference.--_Irving._
11. Only about three weeks since, there was a leader with this or a
similar title.--_Ruskin._
12. I arrived one winter morning about five o’clock, and was not so
full of soul as I might have been in warmer weather.--_Howells._
13. Some of you are, perhaps, more livingly aware than you were an
hour ago of the depths of worth that lie around you, hid in alien
lives.--_Wm. James._
14. He did not know that he bore with him from school and college a
character worth much fine gold, but was pleased to find his mess so
kindly.--_Kipling._
15. This was a bad beginning; so, half an hour after the gun was
withdrawn, the Austrian colonel ordered an assault.