Is it possible to make an adverb out of any adjective? I am aware that not all word forms appear in all dictionaries and while I can find all word forms in some dictionaries, as a non-native speaker of English, I remain skeptical about the actual usage of these words.
Having said that, here are some examples, off the top of my head, of adverbs I (and, apparently, my spellchecker) have problems with:
She spoke slurredly.
He stared ruminantly.
He grunted agitatedly.
She exhaled relievedly.
I realize that the last one is particularly horrible, but these are only examples. Is it correct to write this? Would a native speaker of English ever say something like that?
This is related to my other question (Use of adjective in place of an adverb to achieve same meaning) and while the related post (Is "anecdotally" a proper adverb?) has a partial answer, I would like a more definite and concrete answer to this particular question.
Answer
If you’re asking whether every adjective may be converted by inflection into an adverb, the answer is no. We say
The program ran long.
not
* The program ran longly.
The left side of a ship is its port side, but there’s no adverbial for “in the left side manner”. Certainly not portly.
The reverse is also true. The adverb swimmingly has no corresponding adjectival swimming.
The contest went swimmingly
means something quite different from
the swimming contest.
Past participles in general aren’t adjectives, even though they modify nouns. Some like slurred, agitated, and relieved can be converted to adverbs by appending -ly. Some can’t. Thus
The painted bird depicts a feathered creature.
but not
* The feathered creature was depicted paintedly.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Igor Ševo , Answer Author : deadrat