Traditional grammars define adverbs as words that describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and clauses. An adverb phrase consists of an adverbs plus any other adverbs functioning as adverb phrase modifiers.
In grammar, a prepositional phrase modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that modifies or describes a prepositional phrase. Adverbs and adverb phrases sometimes function as prepositional phrase modifiers in English. Examples of adverbs and adverb phrases as prepositional phrase modifiers include the following:
- You seem rather under the weather.
- Your drawing looks very much like a dog.
- His directions are not very much like the original.
- That painting is not unlike one I saw in New York.
Adverb Phrase as Prepositional Phrase Modifier
References
Brinton, Laurel J. & Donna M. Brinton. 2010. The linguistic structure of Modern English, 2nd edn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Hopper, Paul J. 1999. A short course in grammar. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Huddleston, Rodney. 1984. Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.