1) adverbs of time:
Adverbs of time may be subdivided as follows:
Of time present:
Now the grey cub lived all his days on a level floor. [3, p. 73]
Of time past:
Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-tale red-written on the snow. [3, p. 47]
Of time to come:
“I’ll tie ‘em up out of reach of each other tonight,” Bill said, as they took the trail. [3, p. 22]
I’ll have to cheer him up to-morrow. [3, p. 27]
Of time relative:
In midsummer White Fang had an experience. [3, p. 141]
Of time absolute:
Continually changing its intensity and abruptly variant in pitch, it impinged on his nerves and senses, made him nervous and restless and worried a him with a perpetual imminence of happening.[3, p. 103]
Of time repeated:
E.g. Or again, he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. [3, p. 261]
2) adverbs of frequency:
E.g. Several times they encountered solitary wolves. [3, p. 48]
He was always a little demon of fury when he chanced upon a stray ptarmigan. [3, p. 84]
“He’ll never stand the climate!” he shouted back. [3, p. 223]
White Fang tried the trick once too often. [3, p. 182]
3) adverbs of place and direction
They were evidently coming down the creek from some prospecting trip. [3, p. 186]
Beauty Smith’s remaining leg left the ground, and his whole body seemed to lift into the air as he turned over backward and struck the snow. [3, p. 187]
They did not remain in one place, but travelled across country until they regained the Mackenzie River, down which they slowly went, leaving it often to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but always returning to it again [3, p. 48]
Outside as they had been originally to get to the Inside. [3, p. 221]
4) adverbs of manner
His allegiance to man seemed somehow a law of his being greater than the love of liberty, of kind and kin. [3, p. 137]
This seem to satisfy his master, who flung him down roughly in the bottom of the canoe. [3, p. 111]
“What d’ye think?” Scott queried eagerly. [3, p. 194]
Bill began to eat sleepinly.
White Fang knew the law well: to oppress the weak and to obey the strong. [3, p. 131]
5) adverbs of degree:
E.g. He’ll learn soon enough. [3, p. 226]
He was too busy and happy to know that he was happy. [3, p. 77]
Then he perceived that they were very little, and he became bolder.[3, p.76]
Adverbs of degree or intensifiers may be subdivided into three semantic groups:
emphasizers (emphasizing the truth of the communication):
E.g. And, first, last and most of all, he hated Beauty Smith. [3, p. 173]
amplifiers (expressing a high degree):
E.g. He could not quite suppress a snarl, but he made no offer to snap. [3, p. 95]
“They’re pretty wise, them dogs.”[3, p. 8]
The very atmosphere he breathed was surcharged with hatred and malice. [3, p. 151]
downtoners (lowering the effect):
E.g. It ran below its ordinary speed. [3, p. 43]
He dared not risk a flight with this young lightning — flash, and again he knew, and more bitterly, the enfeeblement of oncoming age. [3, p. 141]
6) Focusing adverbs:
a) restrictive:
E.g. They alone moved through the vast inertness. [3, p. 44]
Tied securely, White Fang could only rage futilely beating. [3, p. 168]
b) additive:
E.g. One foot also he held up, after the manner of a dog. [3, p. 49]
She, too, soared high, but not so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with a metallic snap. [3, p. 51]
7) attitudinal adverbs which express the speaker’s comment on the content of what he is saying. Such adverbs can be of two kinds:
adverbs expressing a comment on the truth-value of what is being said, indicating the extent to which the speaker believes what he is saying is true:
E.g. Perhaps they sensed his wild-wood breed, and instinctively felt for him the enmity that the domestic dog feels for the wolf. [3, p. 115]
And certainly it was he that caused the mother the most trouble in keeping her little from the mouth of the cave. [3, p. 66]
b) adverbs expressing some attitude towards what is being said:
E.g. He is wisely staying at home tonight. [3, p. 189]
8) conjunctive adverbs:
E.g. On the other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked with the scars of many battles. [3, p. 42]
Nevertheless, with the exception of the ones that liped, the movements of the animals were eftortless and tireless. [3, p. 201]
Besides, it was not fear, but terror, that convulsed him. [3, p. 74]
Instead, he pointed towards the wall of darkness that pressed about them from every side. [3, p. 11]
Every little while, however, one dog or another would flame up in revolt and be promptly subdued. [3, p. 131]
9) formulaic adverbs (markers of courtesy):
E.g. She took the rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed and teetered threateningly above her she calmly gnawed off the rabbit’s head. [3, p. 52]
10) interrogative adverbs:
E.g. “Where are you goin’?” Henry suddenly demanded, laying his hand on his partner’s arm. [3, p. 30]
11) conjunctive adverbs with when, why, how, where:
E.g. The first time occurred when the master was trying to teach a spirited thoroughbred the method of opening and closing gates without the rider’s dismounting. [3, p. 249]
Adverbs are commonly divided into qualitative, quantitative and circumstantial.
By qualitative such adverbs are meant as express immediate, inherently non-graded qualities of actions and other qualities. The examples of qualitative adverbs are the following:
E.g. “Well, don’t be a miser with what you know,” Scott said sharply, after waiting a suitable length of time. [3, p. 194]
A panic seized him, and he ran madly toward the village.[3, p. 122]
She was strangely stirred, and sniffed with an increasing delight. [3, p. 49]
The adverbs interpreted as “quantitative” include words of degree. These are specific lexical units of semi-functional nature expressing quality measure, or gradational evaluation of qualities. We observe the following examples of such adverbs in the novel “White Fang”:
Behind Riche followed White Fang, greatly perturbed and worried by this new adventure he had entered upon. [3, p. 98]
Very gently and somewhat suspiciously, he first smelled the tallow and then proceeded to eat it. [3, p. 125]
He had come to know quite thoroughly the world in which he lived. [3, p. 132]
White Fang scarcely knew what happened. [3, p. 134]
The circumstantial adverbs express a general idea of temporal and spatial orientation and essentially perform deictic (indicative) functions in the broader sense. As for circumstantial adverbs of more self-dependent nature, they include two basic sets: first, adverbs of time; second, adverbs of place. There are many examples of circumstantial adverbs using in the book.
Life is always happy when it is expressing itself. [3, p. 90]
This continued, but every time the hand lifted, the hair lifted under it. [3, p. 203]
He turned tail and scampered off across the open in inglorious retreat. [3, p.78]
Inside this circle he crouched, his sleeping outfit under him as a protection against the melting snow. [3, p. 38]
As we see adverbs can be classified from different point of view. The novel “White Fang” by Jack London is full of different types of adverbs.
Adverbs can have different functions in the sentence. Most adverbs serve to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs in the sentence. When they modify verbs, they can serve as adverbial modifiers of time, frequency, place, manner and degree. There are many examples of adverbs in this function in the novel.
Adverbial modifier of time
A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled, emitted a law warning whistle. [3, p. 23]
Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced famine. [3, p. 67]
Adverbial modifier of frequency
E.g. She rarely slept any more in the cave, spending most of her time on the meat-trail and spending it vainly. [3, p. 86]
He had waited too often and futilely in the past for porcupines to unroll, to waste any more time. [3, p. 58]
Adverbial modifier of place
E.g. Danger and hurt and death did not lurk everywhere about him. [3, p.246]
He came down a shelving bank to the stream. [3, p. 79]
They remained in a circle about him and his fire, displaying an arrogance of possession that shook his courage born of the morning light. [3, p. 35]
Adverbial modifier of manner
E.g. Henry looked at him commiseratingly. [3,p. 9]
His two dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a course in the protracted meal which had begun days before with Fatty. [3, p. 38]
He travelled very clumsily. [3, p. 75]
Adverbial modifier of degree
E.g. Also, live things when they were large enough could give hurt. [3, p. 79]
The heritage was too compelling for a wolf that was only a cub. [3,p. 92]
When adverbs modify adjectives or other adverbs, they serve as adverbial modifiers of degree (as intensifies):
At the rear limped the weak members, the very young and the very old. [3, p. 43]
White Fang came in until he touched Grey Beaver’s knee, so curious was he, and already forgetful that this was a terrible man-animal. [3, p. 101]
Comparative adverbs are used in clauses of proportional agreement.
The longer he walked, the better he walked. [3, p. 76]
Comparative adverbs are used to express the idea that a quality or action increases at an even rate the comparative may be repeated
There are some adverbs which may modify nouns or words of nominal character, functioning as attribute.
His return home was late. [3, p.67]
Parenthetical adverbs are adverbs that don’t change the meaning of the sentence. They are often used at the beginning of the sentence. We observed many parentheticals in the book. Some examples of them are the following:
E.g. Besides, he did not like the hands of the man-animals. [3, p. 133]
Thenceforth, in the nature of things, he would possess an abiding distrust of appearances. [3, p. 80]
Furthermore, the sled was of some service, for it carried nearly two hundred pounds of outfit and food. [3, p. 127]
Yet the warm blood of the rabbit tasted good in his mouth. [3, p. 52]
Also, he had once nearly had an eye poked out by a toddling papoose. [3, p. 133]
Namely, that the unpardonable crime was to bite one of the gods. [3, p. 133]
Parentheticals are supposed to receive a so-called ‘comma intonation’, which may be modelled by saying that they form a distinct prosodic phrase.
Nevertheless, he made out, sheltering between her legs against the length of her body, five strange little bundles of life, very feeble, very helpless, making tiny whimpering noises, with eyes that did not open to the light. [3, p. 56]
As we can see from the examples parentheticals don’t add any meaning to the sentence.