+288.+ Sometimes the same word may be used either as an adjective or as
an adverb, and you may have some difficulty in telling whether it is an
adjective or an adverb. Some of these words are: _better_, _little_,
_late_, _far_, _hard_, _further_, _first_, _last_, _long_, _short_,
_much_, _more_ and _high_. For example:
The _late_ news verifies our statement.
The man came _late_ to his work.
In the first sentence, the word _late_ is used as an adjective modifying
the noun _news_. In the second sentence, the word _late_ is used as an
adverb to modify the verb _came_.
+289.+ You can always distinguish between adjectives and adverbs by
this rule: Adjectives modify _only nouns_ and _pronouns_, and the one
essential characteristic of the adverb, as a limiting word, is that it
is _always_ joined to some other part of speech than a noun. An adverb
may modify a verb, adjective or other adverb, but never a noun or
pronoun.
You recall the rule which we have made the very foundation of our study:
namely, that every word is classified in the sentence according to the
_work_ which it does in that sentence. So a word is an adjective when it
limits or modifies or qualifies a noun or pronoun; a word is an adverb
when it qualifies any part of speech other than a noun or pronoun,
either a verb or an adjective or an adverb, or even an entire sentence,
as is the case with adverbs of mode.
+290.+ Many adverbs are regularly made from nouns and adjectives by
prefixes and suffixes. Adverbs are made from adjectives chiefly by
adding the suffix _ly_, or by changing _ble_ to _bly_. For example:
_honestly_, _rarely_, _dearly_, _ably_, _nobly_, _feebly_. But all words
that end in _ly_ are not adverbs. Some adjectives end in _ly_ also, as,
_kingly_, _courtly_, etc. The only way we can determine to which class a
word belongs is by its use in the sentence.