Aryabhata

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For other uses, see Aryabhata (disambiguation).

Statue of Aryabhata on the grounds of IUCAA, Pune. As there is no known information

regarding his appearance, any image of Aryabhata originates from an artist's conception.

Aryabhata (IAST: Āryabhaṭa; Sanskrit: आयरभटः) (476–550 CE) was the first in the line
of great mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and
Indian astronomy. His most famous works are the Aryabhatiya (499 CE, when he was 23
years old) and the Arya-siddhanta.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Biography
o 1.1 Name
o 1.2 Birth
o 1.3 Work
 o 1.4 Other hypotheses
• 2 Works
o 2.1 Aryabhatiya
• 3 Mathematics
o 3.1 Place value system and zero
o 3.2 Approximation of pi
o 3.3 Mensuration and trigonometry
o 3.4 Indeterminate equations
o 3.5 Algebra
• 4 Astronomy
o 4.1 Motions of the solar system
o 4.2 Eclipses
o 4.3 Sidereal periods
o 4.4 Heliocentrism
• 5 Legacy
• 6 See also
• 7 References
o 7.1 Other references

• 8 External links

Biography
Name

While there is a tendency to misspell his name as "Aryabhatta" by analogy with other
names having the "bhatta" suffix, his name is properly spelled Aryabhata: every
astronomical text spells his name thus,[1] including Brahmagupta's references to him "in
more than a hundred places by name".[2] Furthermore, in most instances "Aryabhatta"
does not fit the metre either.[1]

Birth

Aryabhata mentions in the Aryabhatiya that it was composed 3,600 years into the Kali
Yuga, when he was 23 years old. This corresponds to 499 CE, and implies that he was
born in 476 CE.[1]

Aryabhata provides no information about his place of birth. The only information comes
from Bhāskara I, who describes Aryabhata as āśmakīya, "one belonging to the aśmaka
country." It is widely attested that, during the Buddha's time, a branch of the Aśmaka
people settled in the region between the Narmada and Godavari rivers in central India,
today the South Gujarat–North Maharashtra region. Aryabhata is believed to have been
born there.[1][3] However, early Buddhist texts describe Ashmaka as being further south, in
dakshinapath or the Deccan, while other texts describe the Ashmakas as having fought
Alexander, which would put them further north.[3]
Work

It is fairly certain that, at some point, he went to Kusumapura for advanced studies and
that he lived there for some time.[4] Both Hindu and Buddhist tradition, as well as
Bhāskara I (CE 629), identify Kusumapura as Pāṭaliputra, modern Patna.[1] A verse
mentions that Aryabhata was the head of an institution (kulapa) at Kusumapura, and,
because the university of Nalanda was in Pataliputra at the time and had an astronomical
observatory, it is speculated that Aryabhata might have been the head of the Nalanda
university as well.[1] Aryabhata is also reputed to have set up an observatory at the Sun
temple in Taregana, Bihar.[5]

Other hypotheses

It was suggested that Aryabhata may have been from Kerala, but K. V. Sarma, an
authority on Kerala's astronomical tradition, disagreed[1] and pointed out several errors in
this hypothesis.[6]

Aryabhata mentions "Lanka" on several occasions in the Aryabhatiya, but his "Lanka" is
an abstraction, standing for a point on the equator at the same longitude as his Ujjayini.[7]

Works
Aryabhata is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy, some of
which are lost. His major work, Aryabhatiya, a compendium of mathematics and
astronomy, was extensively referred to in the Indian mathematical literature and has
survived to modern times. The mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic,
algebra, plane trigonometry, and spherical trigonometry. It also contains continued
fractions, quadratic equations, sums-of-power series, and a table of sines.

The Arya-siddhanta, a lost work on astronomical computations, is known through the

writings of Aryabhata's contemporary, Varahamihira, and later mathematicians and
commentators, including Brahmagupta and Bhaskara I. This work appears to be based on
the older Surya Siddhanta and uses the midnight-day reckoning, as opposed to sunrise in
Aryabhatiya. It also contained a description of several astronomical instruments: the
gnomon (shanku-yantra), a shadow instrument (chhAyA-yantra), possibly angle-
measuring devices, semicircular and circular (dhanur-yantra / chakra-yantra), a
cylindrical stick yasti-yantra, an umbrella-shaped device called the chhatra-yantra, and
water clocks of at least two types, bow-shaped and cylindrical.[3]

A third text, which may have survived in the Arabic translation, is Al ntf or Al-nanf. It
claims that it is a translation by Aryabhata, but the Sanskrit name of this work is not
known. Probably dating from the 9th century, it is mentioned by the Persian scholar and
chronicler of India, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.[3]

Aryabhatiya
Direct details of Aryabhata's work are known only from the Aryabhatiya. The name
"Aryabhatiya" is due to later commentators. Aryabhata himself may not have given it a
name. His disciple Bhaskara I calls it Ashmakatantra (or the treatise from the Ashmaka).
It is also occasionally referred to as Arya-shatas-aShTa (literally, Aryabhata's 108),
because there are 108 verses in the text. It is written in the very terse style typical of sutra
literature, in which each line is an aid to memory for a complex system. Thus, the
explication of meaning is due to commentators. The text consists of the 108 verses and 13
introductory verses, and is divided into four pādas or chapters:

1. Gitikapada: (13 verses): large units of time—kalpa, manvantra, and yuga—which

present a cosmology different from earlier texts such as Lagadha's Vedanga
Jyotisha (c. 1st century BCE). There is also a table of sines (jya), given in a single
verse. The duration of the planetary revolutions during a mahayuga is given as
4.32 million years.
2. Ganitapada (33 verses): covering mensuration (kṣetra vyāvahāra), arithmetic and
geometric progressions, gnomon / shadows (shanku-chhAyA), simple, quadratic,
simultaneous, and indeterminate equations (kuTTaka)
3. Kalakriyapada (25 verses): different units of time and a method for determining
the positions of planets for a given day, calculations concerning the intercalary
month (adhikamAsa), kShaya-tithis, and a seven-day week with names for the
days of week.
4. Golapada (50 verses): Geometric/trigonometric aspects of the celestial sphere,
features of the ecliptic, celestial equator, node, shape of the earth, cause of day
and night, rising of zodiacal signs on horizon, etc. In addition, some versions cite
a few colophons added at the end, extolling the virtues of the work, etc.

The Aryabhatiya presented a number of innovations in mathematics and astronomy in

verse form, which were influential for many centuries. The extreme brevity of the text
was elaborated in commentaries by his disciple Bhaskara I (Bhashya, c. 600 CE) and by
Nilakantha Somayaji in his Aryabhatiya Bhasya, (1465 CE).

Mathematics
Place value system and zero

The place-value system, first seen in the 3rd century Bakhshali Manuscript, was clearly
in place in his work. While he did not use a symbol for zero, the French mathematician
Georges Ifrah argues that knowledge of zero was implicit in Aryabhata's place-value
system as a place holder for the powers of ten with null coefficients[8]

However, Aryabhata did not use the Brahmi numerals. Continuing the Sanskritic tradition
from Vedic times, he used letters of the alphabet to denote numbers, expressing
quantities, such as the table of sines in a mnemonic form.[9]

Approximation of pi
Aryabhata worked on the approximation for pi (π), and may have come to the conclusion
that π is irrational. In the second part of the Aryabhatiyam (gaṇitapāda 10), he writes:

caturadhikam śatamaṣṭaguṇam dvāṣaṣṭistathā sahasrāṇām

ayutadvayaviṣkambhasyāsanno vṛttapariṇāhaḥ.
"Add four to 100, multiply by eight, and then add 62,000. By this rule the circumference
of a circle with a diameter of 20,000 can be approached."[10]

This implies that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is

((4+100)×8+62000)/20000 = 62832/20000 = 3.1416, which is accurate to five significant
figures.

It is speculated that Aryabhata used the word āsanna (approaching), to mean that not
only is this an approximation but that the value is incommensurable (or irrational). If this
is correct, it is quite a sophisticated insight, because the irrationality of pi was proved in
Europe only in 1761 by Lambert.[11]

After Aryabhatiya was translated into Arabic (c. 820 CE) this approximation was
mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's book on algebra.[3]

Mensuration and trigonometry

In Ganitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of a triangle as

tribhujasya phalashariram samadalakoti bhujardhasamvargah

that translates to: "for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the
area."[12]

Aryabhata discussed the concept of sine in his work by the name of ardha-jya. Literally,
it means "half-chord". For simplicity, people started calling it jya. When Arabic writers
translated his works from Sanskrit into Arabic, they referred it as jiba. However, in
Arabic writings, vowels are omitted, and it was abbreviated as jb. Later writers
substituted it with jiab, meaning "cove" or "bay." (In Arabic, jiba is a meaningless word.)
Later in the 12th century, when Gherardo of Cremona translated these writings from
Arabic into Latin, he replaced the Arabic jiab with its Latin counterpart, sinus, which
means "cove" or "bay". And after that, the sinus became sine in English.[13]

Indeterminate equations

A problem of great interest to Indian mathematicians since ancient times has been to find
integer solutions to equations that have the form ax + by = c, a topic that has come to be
known as diophantine equations. This is an example from Bhāskara's commentary on
Aryabhatiya:
 Find the number which gives 5 as the remainder when divided by 8, 4 as the
remainder when divided by 9, and 1 as the remainder when divided by 7

That is, find N = 8x+5 = 9y+4 = 7z+1. It turns out that the smallest value for N is 85. In
general, diophantine equations, such as this, can be notoriously difficult. They were
discussed extensively in ancient Vedic text Sulba Sutras, whose more ancient parts might
date to 800 BCE. Aryabhata's method of solving such problems is called the kuṭṭaka
(कुटक) method. Kuttaka means "pulverizing" or "breaking into small pieces", and the
method involves a recursive algorithm for writing the original factors in smaller numbers.
Today this algorithm, elaborated by Bhaskara in 621 CE, is the standard method for
solving first-order diophantine equations and is often referred to as the Aryabhata
algorithm.[14] The diophantine equations are of interest in cryptology, and the RSA
Conference, 2006, focused on the kuttaka method and earlier work in the Sulvasutras.

Algebra

In Aryabhatiya Aryabhata provided elegant results for the summation of series of squares
and cubes:[15]

and

Astronomy
Aryabhata's system of astronomy was called the audAyaka system, in which days are
reckoned from uday, dawn at lanka or "equator". Some of his later writings on
astronomy, which apparently proposed a second model (or ardha-rAtrikA, midnight) are
lost but can be partly reconstructed from the discussion in Brahmagupta's
khanDakhAdyaka. In some texts, he seems to ascribe the apparent motions of the heavens
to the Earth's rotation. He also treated the planet's orbits as elliptical rather than circular.
[16][17]

Motions of the solar system

Aryabhata appears to have believed that the earth rotates about its axis. This is indicated
in the statement, referring to Lanka , which describes the movement of the stars as a
relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth:

"Like a man in a boat moving forward sees the stationary objects as moving
backward, just so are the stationary stars seen by the people in Lanka (or on the
 equator) as moving exactly towards the west." [achalAni bhAni
samapashchimagAni – golapAda.9]

But the next verse describes the motion of the stars and planets as real movements: "The
cause of their rising and setting is due to the fact that the circle of the asterisms, together
with the planets driven by the provector wind, constantly moves westwards at Lanka."

As mentioned above, Lanka (lit. Sri Lanka) is here a reference point on the equator,
which was the equivalent of the reference meridian for astronomical calculations.

Aryabhata described a geocentric model of the solar system, in which the Sun and Moon
are each carried by epicycles. They in turn revolve around the Earth. In this model, which
is also found in the Paitāmahasiddhānta (c. CE 425), the motions of the planets are each
governed by two epicycles, a smaller manda (slow) and a larger śīghra (fast). [18] The
order of the planets in terms of distance from earth is taken as: the Moon, Mercury,
Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the asterisms."[3]

The positions and periods of the planets was calculated relative to uniformly moving
points. In the case of Mercury and Venus, they move around the Earth at the same speed
as the Sun. In the case of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, they move around the Earth at
specific speeds, representing each planet's motion through the zodiac. Most historians of
astronomy consider that this two-epicycle model reflects elements of pre-Ptolemaic
Greek astronomy.[19] Another element in Aryabhata's model, the śīghrocca, the basic
planetary period in relation to the Sun, is seen by some historians as a sign of an
underlying heliocentric model.[20]

Eclipses

Aryabhata states that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight. Instead of the
prevailing cosmogony in which eclipses were caused by pseudo-planetary nodes Rahu
and Ketu, he explains eclipses in terms of shadows cast by and falling on Earth. Thus, the
lunar eclipse occurs when the moon enters into the Earth's shadow (verse gola.37). He
discusses at length the size and extent of the Earth's shadow (verses gola.38–48) and then
provides the computation and the size of the eclipsed part during an eclipse. Later Indian
astronomers improved on the calculations, but Aryabhata's methods provided the core.
His computational paradigm was so accurate that 18th century scientist Guillaume Le
Gentil, during a visit to Pondicherry, India, found the Indian computations of the duration
of the lunar eclipse of 30 August 1765 to be short by 41 seconds, whereas his charts (by
Tobias Mayer, 1752) were long by 68 seconds.[3]

Aryabhata's computation of the Earth's circumference as 39,968.0582 kilometres was

only 0.2% smaller than the actual value of 40,075.0167 kilometres. This approximation
was a significant improvement over the computation by Greek mathematician
Eratosthenes (c. 200 BCE), whose exact computation is not known in modern units but
his estimate had an error of around 5–10%.[21][22]
Sidereal periods

Considered in modern English units of time, Aryabhata calculated the sidereal rotation
(the rotation of the earth referencing the fixed stars) as 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4.1
seconds; the modern value is 23:56:4.091. Similarly, his value for the length of the
sidereal year at 365 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes, and 30 seconds is an error of 3 minutes
and 20 seconds over the length of a year. The notion of sidereal time was known in most
other astronomical systems of the time, but this computation was likely the most accurate
of the period. [23].

Heliocentrism

As mentioned, Aryabhata claimed that the Earth turns on its own axis, and some elements
of his planetary epicyclic models rotate at the same speed as the motion of the Earth
around the Sun. The planetary orbits were also given with respect to the Sun and he also
states: "Whoever knows this Dasagitika Sutra which describes the movements of the
Earth and the planets in the sphere of the asterisms passes through the paths of the planets
and asterisms and goes to the higher Brahman." Thus, it has been suggested that
Aryabhata's calculations were based on an underlying heliocentric model, in which the
planets orbit the Sun.[24][25][26] A detailed rebuttal to this heliocentric interpretation is in a
review that describes B. L. van der Waerden's book as "show[ing] a complete
misunderstanding of Indian planetary theory [that] is flatly contradicted by every word of
Aryabhata's description."[27] However, some concede that Aryabhata's system stems from
an earlier heliocentric model, of which he was unaware.[28] Though Aristarchus of Samos
(3rd century BCE) is credited with holding an heliocentric theory, the version of Greek
astronomy known in ancient India as the Paulisa Siddhanta makes no reference to such a
theory.

Legacy
Aryabhata's work was of great influence in the Indian astronomical tradition and
influenced several neighbouring cultures through translations. The Arabic translation
during the Islamic Golden Age (c. 820 CE), was particularly influential. Some of his
results are cited by Al-Khwarizmi and in the 10th century Al-Biruni stated that
Aryabhata's followers believed that the Earth rotated on its axis.

His definitions of sine (jya), cosine (kojya), versine (utkrama-jya), and inverse sine
(otkram jya) influenced the birth of trigonometry. He was also the first to specify sine and
versine (1 − cos x) tables, in 3.75° intervals from 0° to 90°, to an accuracy of 4 decimal
places.

In fact, modern names "sine" and "cosine" are mistranscriptions of the words jya and
kojya as introduced by Aryabhata. As mentioned, they were translated as jiba and kojiba
in Arabic and then misunderstood by Gerard of Cremona while translating an Arabic
geometry text to Latin. He assumed that jiba was the Arabic word jaib, which means
"fold in a garment", L. sinus (c. 1150).[29]
Aryabhata's astronomical calculation methods were also very influential. Along with the
trigonometric tables, they came to be widely used in the Islamic world and used to
compute many Arabic astronomical tables (zijes). In particular, the astronomical tables in
the work of the Arabic Spain scientist Al-Zarqali (11th century) were translated into
Latin as the Tables of Toledo (12th c.) and remained the most accurate ephemeris used in
Europe for centuries.

Calendric calculations devised by Aryabhata and his followers have been in continuous
use in India for the practical purposes of fixing the Panchangam (the Hindu calendar). In
the Islamic world, they formed the basis of the Jalali calendar introduced in 1073 CE by a
group of astronomers including Omar Khayyam,[30] versions of which (modified in 1925)
are the national calendars in use in Iran and Afghanistan today. The dates of the Jalali
calendar are based on actual solar transit, as in Aryabhata and earlier Siddhanta
calendars. This type of calendar requires an ephemeris for calculating dates. Although
dates were difficult to compute, seasonal errors were less in the Jalali calendar than in the
Gregorian calendar.

India's first satellite Aryabhata and the lunar crater Aryabhata are named in his honour.
An Institute for conducting research in astronomy, astrophysics and atmospheric sciences
is the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) near Nainital,
India. The inter-school Aryabhata Maths Competition is also named after him,[31] as is
Bacillus aryabhata, a species of bacteria discovered by ISRO scientists in 2009

Fire – friends or foe

The control of fire was such a significant step in the evolution of man that is easy to
forget that it existed long before any man-like creature took shape. In fact, fire existed
ever since the first land plants evolved -- or more than 400 millions years ago. In a recent
post on her blog The Wild Side, Olivia Judson raises some interesting questions about the
ways in which plants have evolved to deal with naturally-caused fires, or even start them.
Yes, start them. There are indeed many species of plants that need fires for their
existence. Many plants also have flammable oils, resins, and gums inside their leaves and
branches. So the question is: Are these flammable materials an adaptation for the
promotion of forest fires? Are these plants also evolving the ability to survive such events
of mass destruction and then "setting" fires to spread their seeds and burn out their
competition? The one piece of evidence in support of this spiteful theory -- that of fire
resistant plants encouraging the initiation and propagation of natural fires -- comes from
pines, in which those that retain their dead branches longer, and are therefore more
flammable, also have fire-triggered seed release. As Judson points out, this is hardly
proof of arson, but the question remains: are the trees evolving to start fires?

Article

An article (abbreviated ART) is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of
reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the
noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the
English language are the and a/an. 'An' and 'a' are modern forms of the Old English 'an',
which in Anglian dialects was the number 'one' (compare 'on', in Saxon dialects) and
survived into Modern Scots as the number 'ane'. Both 'on' (respelled 'one' by the
Normans) and 'an' survived into Modern English, with 'one' used as the number and 'an'
('a', before nouns that begin with a consonant sound) as an indefinite article.

The word some is thus used as a functional plural of a/an. "An apple" never means more
than one apple. "Give me some apples" indicates more than one is desired but without
specifying a quantity. This finds comparison in Spanish, where the indefinite article is
completely indistinguishable from the single number, except that 'uno/una' ("one") has a
plural form ('unos/unas'): Dame una manzana" ("Give me an apple") > "Dame unas
manzanas" ("Give me some apples").

Among the classical parts of speech, articles are considered a special category of
adjectives. Some modern linguists prefer to classify them within a separate part of
speech, determiners.

In languages that employ articles, every common noun, with some exceptions, is
expressed with a certain definiteness (e.g., definite or indefinite), just as many languages
express every noun with a certain grammatical number (e.g., singular or plural). Every
noun must be accompanied by the article, if any, corresponding to its definiteness, and
the lack of an article (considered a zero article) itself specifies a certain definiteness. This
is in contrast to other adjectives and determiners, which are typically optional. This
obligatory nature of articles makes them among the most common words in many
languages—in English, for example, the most frequent word is the.[1]

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Types
o 1.1 Definite article
o 1.2 Indefinite article
o 1.3 Partitive article
o 1.4 Negative article
o 1.5 Zero article
• 2 Variation among languages
• 3 Evolution
o 3.1 Definite articles
o 3.2 Indefinite articles
• 4 See also
• 5 References

• 6 External links
 [edit] Types
Articles are usually characterized as either definite or indefinite.[2] A few languages with
well-developed systems of articles may distinguish additional subtypes.

Within each type, languages may have various forms of each article, according to
grammatical attributes such as gender, number, or case, or according to adjacent sounds.

[edit] Definite article

A definite article indicates that its noun is a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the
listener. It may be the same thing that the speaker has already mentioned, or it may be
something uniquely specified. The definite article in English is the.

The children know the fastest way home.

The sentence above contrasts with the much more general observation that:

Children know the fastest way home.

Likewise,

Give me the book

has a markedly different meaning in most English contexts from

Give me a book.

It can also be used to indicate a specific class among other classes:

The cabbage white butterfly lays its eggs on members of the Brassica genus.

But it should not be used to refer to a specimen:

*The writing is the human invention.

[edit] Indefinite article

An indefinite article indicates that its noun is not a particular one (or ones) identifiable to
the listener. It may be something that the speaker is mentioning for the first time, or its
precise identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a
general statement about any such thing. English uses a/an, from the Old English forms of
the number 'one', as its indefinite article. The form an is used before words that begin
with a vowel sound (even if spelled with an initial consonant, as in an hour, and a before
words that begin with a consonant sound (even if spelled with a vowel, as in a
European).

She had a house so large that an elephant would get lost without a map.

Before some words beginning with a pronounced (not silent) h in an unstressed first
syllable, such as hallucination, hilarious, historic(al), horrendous, and horrific, some
(especially older) British writers prefer to use an over a (an historical event, etc.).[3] An is
also preferred before hotel by some writers of BrE (probably reflecting the relatively
recent adoption of the word from French, where the h is not pronounced).[4] The use of
"an" before words beginning with an unstressed "h" is more common generally in BrE
than American.[4] Such usage would now be seen as affected or incorrect in AmE.[5]
American writers normally use a in all these cases, although there are occasional uses of
an historic(al) in AmE.[6] According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, such use
is increasingly rare in BrE too.[3] Unlike BrE, AmE typically uses an before herb, since
the h in this word is silent for most Americans.

[edit] Partitive article

A partitive article is a type of indefinite article used with a mass noun such as water, to
indicate a non-specific quantity of it. Partitive articles are used in French and Italian in
addition to definite and indefinite articles. The nearest equivalent in English is some,
although this is considered a determiner and not an article.

French: Voulez-vous du café ?

Do you want (some) coffee? (or, dialectally but more accurately, Do you want
some of this coffee?)
See also more information about the French partitive article.

[edit] Negative article

A negative article specifies none of its noun, and can thus be regarded as neither definite
nor indefinite. On the other hand, some consider such a word to be a simple determiner
rather than an article. In English, this function is fulfilled by no.

No man is an island.

[edit] Zero article

The zero article is the absence of an article. In languages having a definite article, the
lack of an article specifically indicates that the noun is indefinite. Linguists interested in
X-bar theory causally link zero articles to nouns lacking a determiner.[7] In English, the
zero article rather than the indefinite is used with plurals and mass nouns, although the
word "some" can be used as an indefinite plural article.

Visitors walked in mud.

[edit] Variation among languages

Articles in some languages in and around Europe

indefinite and definite articles
only definite articles
indefinite and postfixed definite articles
only postfixed definite articles
no articles

Among the world's most widely spoken languages, articles are found almost exclusively
in Indo-European and Semitic languages. Strictly speaking, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi,
Malay, and Russian have no articles, but certain words can be used like articles, when
needed.

Linguists believe the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, Proto Indo-
European, did not have articles. Most of the languages in this family do not have definite
or indefinite articles; there is no article in Latin, Sanskrit, Persian, nor in some modern
Indo-European languages, such as the Baltic languages and most Slavic languages.
Although Classical Greek has a definite article (which has survived into Modern Greek
and which bears strong resemblance to the German definite article), the earlier Homeric
Greek did not. Articles developed independently in several language families.

Not all languages have both definite and indefinite articles. Semitic languages, such as
Arabic and Hebrew, were thought to have only a definite article. In fact, this is not true at
all. For example, the Arabic tanween which is part of the Arabic vowel system, is an
identifier of a number of linguistic features, from them the word's being indefinite.[8] For
languages that do have only one article, it is far less common for a language to have an
indefinite article without having a definite article.

Some languages have different types of definite and indefinite articles to distinguish finer
shades of meaning; for example, French and Italian have a partitive article used for
indefinite mass nouns, while Colognian has two distinct sets of definite articles indicating
focus and uniqueness, and Macedonian uses definite articles in a demonstrative sense,
distinguishing this from that (with an intermediate degree). The words this and that (and
their plurals, these and those) can be understood in English as, ultimately, forms of the
definite article the (whose declension in Old English included thaes, an ancestral form of
this/that and these/those).

In many languages, the form of the article may vary according to the gender, number, or
case of its noun. In some languages the article may be the only indication of the case,
e.g., German Der Hut des Napoleon, "Napoleon's hat". Many languages do not use
articles at all, and may use other ways of indicating old versus new information, such as
topic-comment constructions.

Articles used in the world's most widely spoken languages

Language definite article indefinite article partitive article
Arabic al- tanween ( ٌand variants)
English the a, an
der, die, das ein, eine, einer
German
des, dem, den einem, einen
de, het
Dutch een
de
yan, yat
Tamazight __
ittsn,ittsnt
el, la un, una
Spanish
los, las unos, unas
o, a um, uma
Portuguese
os, as uns, umas
le, la, l' un, une du, de la
French
les des de l', des
il, lo, la, l' del, dello, della, dell'
Italian un, uno, una, un'
i, gli, le dei, degli, degl' , delle

In the above examples, the article always precedes its noun (with the exception of the
Arabic tanween). In some languages, however, the definite article is not always a separate
word, but may be postfixed, attached to the end of its noun as a suffix. For example,

• Albanian: plis, a white fez, plisi the white fez

• Romanian: drum, road; drumul, the road
• Icelandic: hestur, horse; hesturinn, the horse
• Norwegian: stol, chair; stolen, the chair
 • Swedish: hus house; huset the house
• Bulgarian: стол stol, chair; столът stolǎt, the chair (subject); стола stola, the
chair (object)
• Macedonian: стол stol, chair; столот stolot, the chair; столов stolov, this chair;
столон stolon, that chair

[edit] Evolution
Articles have developed independently in many different language families across the
globe. Generally, articles develop over time usually by specialization of certain
adjectives.

Joseph Greenberg [9][10] describes "the cycle of the definite article": Definite articles
(Stage I) evolve from demonstratives, and in turn can become generic articles (Stage II)
that may be used in both definite and indefinite contexts, and later merely noun markers
(Stage III) that are part of nouns other than proper names and more recent borrowings.
Eventually articles may evolve anew from demonstratives.

[edit] Definite articles

Definite articles typically arise from demonstratives meaning that. For example, the
definite articles in the Romance languages—e.g., el, il, le, la—derive from the Latin
demonstratives ille (masculine) and illa (feminine).

The English definite article the, written þe in Middle English, derives from an Old
English demonstrative, which, according to gender, was written se (masculine), seo
(feminine), or þæt (neuter). The neuter form þæt also gave rise to the modern
demonstrative that. The ye occasionally seen in pseudo-archaic usage such as "Ye Olde
Englishe Tea Shoppe" is actually a form of þe, where the letter thorn (þ) came to be
written as a y.

Multiple demonstratives can give rise to multiple definite articles. Macedonian, for
example, in which the articles are suffixed, has столот (stolot), the chair; столов
(stolov), this chair; and столон (stolon), that chair. Colognian prepositions articles such
as in dat Auto, or et Auto, the car; the first being specifically selected, focussed, newly
introduced, while the latter ist not selected, unfocussed, already known, general, or
generic.

[edit] Indefinite articles

Indefinite articles typically arise from adjectives meaning one. For example, the
indefinite articles in the Romance languages—e.g., un, una, une—derive from the Latin
adjective unus. Partitive articles, however, derive from Vulgar Latin de illo, meaning
(some) of the.
The English indefinite article an is derived from the same root as one. The -n came to be
dropped before consonants, giving rise to the shortened form a. The existence of both
forms has led to many cases of juncture loss, e.g. transforming the original a napron into
the modern an apron.

Adjective
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its
sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article
by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (January 2010)
Examples
• That's an interesting
idea. (Attributive)
• That idea is interesting.
(Predicative)
• Tell me something
interesting. (Post-
positive)

• The good, the bad, and

the ugly. (Substantive)

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or

pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent. Collectively,
adjectives form one of the traditional English eight parts of speech, though linguists today
distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners that also used to be considered
adjectives.

Not all languages have adjectives, but most, including English, do. (English adjectives
include big, old, and tired, among many others.) Those that do not, typically use words of
another part of speech, often verbs, to serve the same semantic function; for example,
such a language might have a verb that means "to be big", and would use a construction
analogous to "big-being house" to express what English expresses as "big house". Even
in languages that do have adjectives, one language's adjective might not be another's; for
example, while English uses "to be hungry" (hungry being an adjective), French and
Spanish use "avoir faim" and "tener hambre" respectively (literally "to have hunger",
hunger being a noun), and where Hebrew uses the adjective "‫( "זקוק‬zaqūq, roughly "in
need of"), English uses the verb "to need".
In most languages with adjectives, they form an open class of words; that is, it is
relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Adjectives and adverbs

• 2 Determiners
• 3 Form
• 4 Adjectival phrases
• 5 Other noun modifiers
• 6 Adjective order
• 7 Comparison of adjectives
• 8 Restrictiveness
• 9 See also
• 10 Bibliography

• 11 External links

[edit] Adjectives and adverbs

Many languages, including English, distinguish between adjectives, which modify nouns
and pronouns, and adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Not all
languages have exactly this distinction, however, and in many languages (including
English) there are words that can function as both. For example, in English fast is an
adjective in "a fast car" (where it modifies the noun car), but an adverb in "he drove fast"
(where it modifies the verb drove).

[edit] Determiners
Main article: Determiner (linguistics)

Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two

separate parts of speech (or lexical categories), but traditionally, determiners were
considered adjectives in some of their uses. (In English dictionaries, which typically still
do not treat determiners as their own part of speech, determiners are often recognizable
by being listed both as adjectives and as pronouns.) Determiners are words that are
neither nouns nor pronouns, yet reference a thing already in context. Determiners
generally do this by indicating definiteness (as in a vs. the), quantity (as in one vs. some
vs. many), or another such property.

[edit] Form
A given occurrence of an adjective can generally be classified into one of four kinds of
uses:

• Attributive adjectives are part of the noun phrase headed by the noun they modify;
for example, happy is an attributive adjective in "happy people". In some
languages, attributive adjectives precede their nouns; in others, they follow their
nouns; and in yet others, it depends on the adjective, or on the exact relationship
of the adjective to the noun. In English, attributive adjectives usually precede their
nouns in simple phrases, but often follow their nouns when the adjective is
modified or qualified by a phrase acting as an adverb. For example: "I saw three
happy kids", and "I saw three kids happy enough to jump up and down with glee."
See also Post-positive adjective.
• Predicative adjectives are linked via a copula or other linking mechanism to the
noun or pronoun they modify; for example, happy is a predicate adjective in "they
are happy" and in "that made me happy." (See also: Predicative (adjectival or
nominal), Subject complement.)
• Absolute adjectives do not belong to a larger construction (aside from a larger
adjective phrase), and typically modify either the subject of a sentence or
whatever noun or pronoun they are closest to; for example, happy is an absolute
adjective in "The boy, happy with his lollipop, did not look where he was going."
• Nominal adjectives act almost as nouns. One way this can happen is if a noun is
elided and an attributive adjective is left behind. In the sentence, "I read two
books to them; he preferred the sad book, but she preferred the happy", happy is a
nominal adjective, short for "happy one" or "happy book". Another way this can
happen is in phrases like "out with the old, in with the new", where "the old"
means, "that which is old" or "all that is old", and similarly with "the new". In
such cases, the adjective functions either as a mass noun (as in the preceding
example) or as a plural count noun, as in "The meek shall inherit the Earth",
where "the meek" means "those who are meek" or "all who are meek".

[edit] Adjectival phrases

Main article: Adjectival phrase

An adjective acts as the head of an adjectival phrase. In the simplest case, an adjectival
phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjectival phrases may contain one
or more adverbs modifying the adjective ("very strong"), or one or more complements
(such as "worth several dollars", "full of toys", or "eager to please"). In English,
attributive adjectival phrases that include complements typically follow their subject ("an
evildoer devoid of redeeming qualities").

[edit] Other noun modifiers

In many languages, including English, it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns.
Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called attributive nouns or noun adjuncts)
are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". In plain
English, the modifier often indicates origin ("Virginia reel"), purpose ("work clothes"), or
semantic patient ("man eater"). However, it can generally indicate almost any semantic
relationship. It is also common for adjectives to be derived from nouns, as in English
boyish, birdlike, behavioral, famous, manly, angelic, and so on.

Many languages have special verbal forms called participles can act as noun modifiers.
In some languages, including English, there is a strong tendency for participles to evolve
into adjectives. English examples of this include relieved (the past participle of the verb
relieve, used as an adjective in sentences (such as "I am so relieved to see you"), spoken
(as in "the spoken word"), and going (the present participle of the verb go, used as an
adjective in sentences such as "Ten dollars per hour is the going rate").

Other constructs that often modify nouns include prepositional phrases (as in English "a
rebel without a cause"), relative clauses (as in English "the man who wasn't there"), other
adjective clauses (as in English "the bookstore where he worked"), and infinitive phrases
(as in English "cake to die for").

In relation, many nouns take complements such as content clauses (as in English "the
idea that I would do that"); these are not commonly considered modifiers, however.

[edit] Adjective order

In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order. Generally, the
adjective order in English is:

1. quantity or number
2. quality
3. size
4. age
5. shape
6. color
7. proper adjective (often nationality or other place of origin)
8. purpose or qualifier

So, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little
old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to color ("old
white", not "white old"). So, we would say "A nice (opinion) little (size) old (age) white
(color) brick (material) house". However, most native speakers will say, "a big, ugly
desk" (size, opinion) instead of "an ugly, big desk" (opinion, size), for example.[citation needed]

This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it
may only be a default (unmarked) word order, with other orders being permissible.

[edit] Comparison of adjectives

Main articles: Comparison (grammar) and Comparative

In many languages, adjectives can be compared. In English, for example, we can say that
a car is big, that it is bigger than another is, or that it is the biggest car of all. Not all
adjectives lend themselves to comparison, however; for example, the English adjective
extinct is not considered comparable, in that it does not make sense to describe one
species as "more extinct" than another. However, even most non-comparable English
adjectives are still sometimes compared; for example, one might say that a language
about which nothing is known is "more extinct" than a well-documented language with
surviving literature but no speakers. This is not a comparison of the degree of intensity of
the adjective, but rather the degree to which the object fits the adjective's definition.

Comparable adjectives are also known as "gradable" adjectives, because they tend to
allow grading adverbs such as very, rather, and so on.

Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared in this way, different approaches
are used. Indeed, even within English, two different approaches are used: the suffixes -er
and -est, and the words more and most. (In English, the general tendency is for shorter
adjectives and adjectives from Anglo-Saxon to use -er and -est, and for longer adjectives
and adjectives from French, Latin, Greek, and other languages to use more and most.) By
either approach, English adjectives therefore have positive forms (big), comparative
forms (bigger), and superlative forms (biggest). However, many other languages do not
distinguish comparative from superlative forms.

[edit] Restrictiveness
Main article: Restrictiveness

Attributive adjectives, and other noun modifiers, may be used either restrictively (helping
to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference), or non-restrictively
(helping to describe an already-identified noun). In some languages, such as Spanish,
restrictiveness is consistently marked; for example, in Spanish la tarea difícil means "the
difficult task" in the sense of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), while la difícil tarea
means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In
English, restrictiveness is not marked on adjectives, but is marked on relative clauses (the
difference between "the man who recognized me was there" and "the man, who
recognized me, was there" being one of restrictiveness).

[edit] See also

• Attributive verb
• Flat adverb
• List of eponymous adjectives in English
• List of irregular English adjectives
• Noun adjunct
 • Post-positive adjective
• Proper adjective

------------------------------------------------------

Fire! Fire! Those words can often instill panic and fear in our minds. We think of the
devastating results fires can have, the lives they can claim and the destruction they leave
behind. Now with the fires that took place this summer in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho,
and South Dakota, fire, and fire management is on the forefront of the minds of many an
ecologist. Just what role does fire play in an ecosystem?

Is fire a destructive menace that must be kept in strict control, or does it serve a useful
purpose? In the interests of forest health, the quality of habitat for wildlife, the
productivity of the soil, and the aesthetically pleasing result of healthy trees and an
abundance of wildlife, fire does indeed serve a useful purpose. Fire is a natural
rejuvenator, helping to curb disease, break down underbrush to be recycled, improve the
quality of vegetation, and give the forest a fresh new start.

In nature everything goes through cycles. Plants and animals live, die, and return to the
soil and then other plants and animals go through the same process. The same is true on a
larger scale, with the cycle of succession. Grasslands and forests can complete cycles of
succession, with groups of plant species replacing others, until those also are replaced.
Fire is a tool to hinder further stages of succession (ie. keeping a pine forest as a pine
forest)or revert succession back to a previous stage (ie. scrub areas to grasslands).

Fire can also cause a mixture of plant and animal species to be present when fire burns
areas on a smaller scale, as the burned areas may be replaced with a greater number of a
species other than the dominant species of the area. This mixture is important in disease
control (as diseases will often affect one species and not another) and is important on the
health of the wildlife. Many animals thrive with a combination of vegetation and other
animals present, a natural system of checks and balances.

Fire also breaks down and returns nutrients to the soil, enriching it and causing more
fertile growth.

Fire need not be dreaded when in the right context. Fire can be an important player in
forming and shaping, and even improving the ecosystem!
Fire has frightened and fascinated human beings for centuries. Although we often think
of fire as only hurtful, it can play an essential part in maintaining the natural balance of
nature. As science explores the role of naturally occurring fires, we have become better
skilled at utilizing fire and living alongside its dangers. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's
authoritative text -- coupled with William Munoz's spectacular photographs -- documents
scientists' growing knowledge of the awesome power of fire.

Adverb
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from English adverbs)
Jump to: navigation, search
"Adverbs" redirects here. For the Daniel Handler novel, see Adverbs (novel).
Examples
• The waves came
in quickly over
the rocks.
• I found the film
incredibly dull.
• The meeting
went well, and
the directors
were extremely
happy with the
outcome!
• Crabs are
known for
walking
sideways.
• I often have
eggs for
breakfast.
• However, I
shall not eat
fried eggs
again.

• Pie is very
good, i eat it
quickly
whenever I
order it.
An adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any part of language other
than a noun (modifiers of nouns are primarily adjectives and determiners). Adverbs can
modify verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences and other adverbs.

Adverbs typically answer questions such as how?, in what way?, when?, where?, and to
what extent?. This function is called the adverbial function, and is realized not just by
single words (i.e., adverbs) but by adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Adverbs in English
o 1.1 Adverbs as a "catch-all" category
• 2 Other languages
• 3 See also
• 4 References

• 5 External links

[edit] Adverbs in English

In English, adverbs of manner (answering the question how?) are often formed by adding
-ly to adjectives. For example, great yields greatly, and beautiful yields beautifully. (Note
that some words that end in -ly, such as friendly and lovely, are not adverbs, but
adjectives, in which case the root word is usually a noun. There are also underived
adjectives that end in -ly, such as holy and silly.)

The suffix -ly is related to the Germanic word "lich". (There is also an obsolete English
word lych or lich with the same meaning.) Both words are also related to the word like.
The connection between -ly and like is easy to understand. The connection to lich is
probably that both are descended from an earlier word that meant something like "shape"
or "form".[1]

In this way, -ly in English is cognate with the common German adjective ending -lich and
the Dutch ending -lijk. This same process is followed in Romance languages with the
ending -mente, -ment, or -mense meaning "of/like the mind".

In some cases, the suffix -wise may be used to derive adverbs from nouns. Historically,
-wise competed with a related form -ways and won out against it. In a few words, like
sideways, -ways survives; words like clockwise show the transition. Again, it is not a
foolproof indicator of a word being an adverb. Some adverbs are formed from nouns or
adjectives by appending the prefix a- (such as abreast, astray). There are a number of
other suffixes in English that derive adverbs from other word classes, and there are also
many adverbs that are not morphologically indicated at all.
Comparative adverbs include more, most, least, and less (in phrases such as more
beautiful, most easily etc.).

The usual form pertaining to adjectives or adverbs is called the positive. Formally,
adverbs in English are inflected in terms of comparison, just like adjectives. The
comparative and superlative forms of some (especially single-syllable) adverbs that do
not end in -ly are generated by adding -er and -est (She ran faster; He jumps highest).
Others, especially those ending -ly, are periphrastically compared by the use of more or
most (She ran more quickly) -- while some accept both forms, e.g. oftener and more often
are both correct. Adverbs also take comparisons with as ... as, less, and least. Not all
adverbs are comparable; for example in the sentence He wore red yesterday it does not
make sense to speak of "more yesterday" or "most yesterday".

[edit] Adverbs as a "catch-all" category

Adverbs are considered a part of speech in traditional English grammar and are still
included as a part of speech in grammar taught in schools and used in dictionaries.
However, modern grammarians recognize that words traditionally grouped together as
adverbs serve a number of different functions. Some would go so far as to call adverbs a
"catch-all" category that includes all words that do not belong to one of the other parts of
speech.

A more logical approach to dividing words into classes relies on recognizing which
words can be used in a certain context. For example, a noun is a word that can be inserted
in the following template to form a grammatical sentence:

The _____ is red. (For example, "The hat is red".)

When this approach is taken, it is seen that adverbs fall into a number of different
categories. For example, some adverbs can be used to modify an entire sentence, whereas
others cannot. Even when a sentential adverb has other functions, the meaning is often
not the same. For example, in the sentences She gave birth naturally and Naturally, she
gave birth, the word naturally has different meanings. Naturally as a sentential adverb
means something like "of course" and as a verb-modifying adverb means "in a natural
manner". This "naturally" distinction demonstrates that the class of sentential adverbs is a
closed class (there is resistance to adding new words to the class), whereas the class of
adverbs that modify verbs isn't.

Words like very and particularly afford another useful example. We can say Perry is very
fast, but not Perry very won the race. These words can modify adjectives but not verbs.
On the other hand, there are words like here and there that cannot modify adjectives. We
can say The sock looks good there but not It is a there beautiful sock. The fact that many
adverbs can be used in more than one of these functions can confuse this issue, and it
may seem like splitting hairs to say that a single adverb is really two or more words that
serve different functions. However, this distinction can be useful, especially considering
adverbs like naturally that have different meanings in their different functions.
Huddleston distinguishes between a word and a lexicogrammatical-word[2].

Not is an interesting case. Grammarians have a difficult time categorizing it, and it
probably belongs in its own class[3][4]

[edit] Other languages

Other languages may form adverbs in different ways, if they are used at all: adverb of
manners and adverb of place.

• In non-standard Brazilian Portuguese, the adverb menos (less) sometimes inflects

for gender before a feminine noun. Menos água thus becomes menas água (less
water). This kind of inflection is considered ungrammatical and is not
recommended. [1]
• In Dutch adverbs have the basic form of their corresponding adjectives and are
not inflected (except for comparison in which case they are inflected like
adjectives, too).
• In German the term Adverb is differently defined than in the English language.
German adverbs form a group of not inflectable words (except for comparison in
which in rare cases some are inflected like adjectives, too). An English adverb,
which is derived from an adjective, is arranged in the German language under the
adjectives with adverbial use in the sentence. The others are also called adverbs in
the German language.
• In Scandinavian languages, adverbs are typically derived from adjectives by
adding the suffix '-t', which makes it identical to the adjective's neuter form.
Scandinavian adjectives, like English ones, are inflected in terms of comparison
by adding '-ere'/'-are' (comparative) or '-est'/'-ast' (superlative). In inflected forms
of adjectives the '-t' is absent. Periphrastic comparison is also possible.
• In Romance languages many adverbs are formed from adjectives (often the
feminine form) by adding '-mente' (Portuguese, Spanish, Italian) or '-ment'
(French, Catalan) (from Latin mens, mentis: mind, intelligence). Other adverbs are
single forms which are invariable.
• In the Romanian language, the vast majority of adverbs are simply the masculine
singular form of the corresponding adjective – one notable exception being bine
("well") / bun ("good"). However, there are some Romanian adverbs that are built
from certain masculine singular nouns using the suffix "-eşte", such as the
following ones: băieţ-eşte (boyishly), tiner-eşte (youthfully), bărbăt-eşte (manly),
frăţ-eşte (brotherly), etcaetara.
• Interlingua also forms adverbs by adding '-mente' to the adjective. If an adjective
ends in c, the adverbial ending is '-amente'. A few short, invariable adverbs, such
as ben, "well", and mal, "badly", are available and widely used.
• In Esperanto, adverbs are not formed from adjectives but are made by adding '-e'
directly to the word root. Thus, from bon are derived bone, "well", and 'bona',
'good'. See also: special Esperanto adverbs.
• Modern Standard Arabic forms adverbs by adding the indefinite accusative
ending '-an' to the root. For example, kathiir-, "many", becomes kathiiran "much".
However, Arabic often avoids adverbs by using a cognate accusative plus an
adjective.
• Austronesian languages appear to form comparative adverbs by repeating the root
(as in WikiWiki), similarly to the plural noun.
• Japanese forms adverbs from verbal adjectives by adding /ku/ (く) to the stem
(e.g. haya- "rapid" hayai "quick/early", hayakatta "was quick", hayaku "quickly")
and from nominal adjectives by placing /ni/ (に) after the adjective instead of the
copula /na/ (な) or /no/ (の) (e.g. rippa "splendid", rippa ni "splendidly"). These
derivations are quite productive but there are a few adjectives from which adverbs
may not be derived.
• In Gaelic, an adverbial form is made by preceding the adjective with the
preposition go (Irish) or gu (Scottish Gaelic), meaning 'until'.
• In Modern Greek, an adverb is most commonly made by adding the endings <-α>
and/or <-ως> to the root of an adjective. Often, the adverbs formed from a
common root using each of these endings have slightly different meanings. So,
<τέλειος> (<téleios>, meaning "perfect" and "complete") yields <τέλεια>
(<téleia>, "perfectly") and <τελείως> (<teleíos>, "completely"). Not all adjectives
can be transformed into adverbs by using both endings. <Γρήγορος> (<grígoros>,
"rapid") becomes <γρήγορα> (<grígora>, "rapidly"), but not normally
*<γρηγόρως> (*<grigóros>). When the <-ως> ending is used to transform an
adjective whose tonal accent is on the third syllable from the end, such as
<επίσημος> (<epísimos>, "official"), the corresponding adjective is accented on
the second syllable from the end; compare <επίσημα> (<epísima>) and
<επισήμως> (<episímos>), which both mean "officially". There are also other
endings with particular and restricted use as <-ί>, <-εί>, <-ιστί>, etc. For
example, <ατιμωρητί> (<atimorití>, "with impunity") and <ασυζητητί>
(<asyzitití>, "indisputably"); <αυτολεξεί> (<autolexeí> "word for word") and
<αυτοστιγμεί> (<autostigmeí>, "in no time"); <αγγλιστί> [<anglistí> "in English
(language)"] and <παπαγαλιστί> (<papagalistí>, "by rote"); etc.
• In Latvian, an adverb is formed from an adjective, by changing the masculine or
feminine adjective endings -s and -a to -i. "Labs", meaning "good", becomes
"labi" for "well". Latvian adverbs have a particular use in expressions meaning
"to speak" or "to understand" a language. Rather than use the noun meaning
"Latvian/English/Russian", the adverb formed form these words is used. "Es
runāju latviski/angliski/krieviski" means "I speak Latvian/English/Russian", or
very literally "I speak Latvianly/Englishly/Russianly". When a noun is required,
the expression used means literally "language of the Latvians/English/Russians",
"latviešu/angļu/krievu valoda".
• In Ukrainian/ Russian, an adverb is formed by removing the adjectival suffices "-
ий" "-а" or "-е" from an adjective, and replacing them with the adverbial "-о". For
example, "швидкий", "гарна", and "смачне" (fast, nice, tasty) become
"швидко", "гарно", and "смачно" (quickly, nicely, tastefully). As well, note that
adverbs are mostly placed before the verbs they modify: "Добрий син гарно
 співає." (A good son sings nicely/well). Although, there is no specific word order
in east slavic languages.
• In Korean, adverbs are formed by replacing 다 of the dictionary form of a verb
with 게. So, 쉽다 (easy) becomes 쉽게 (easily).
• In Turkish, the same word usually serves as adjective and adverb: iyi bir kız ("a
good girl"), iyi anlamak ("to understand well).

The Azerbaijan linguistic school does not consider an adverb to be an independent part of
speech, as it is an adverbialized form of other parts of speech. I.e., recognition of its
equity with other parts of speech violates the second and fourth laws of logic division.
Adverbs are derived from other parts of speech. Their functions are performed by other
parts of speech when they play the role of "means of expression" for an adverbial. That
is, other parts of speech, playing the role of adverbial, automatically transform (convert)
into an adverb.See Mammadov J.M.: Separation of parts of speech