Adverbs of Affirmation and Negation

Spices make a dish smell or taste better

They make our food aromatic and flavorful

Without spices, our food would be bland and uninteresting

Similarly, descriptive words develop our sense of imagination

Without them, conversations, reading, and writing would be plain and boring

The flavor in our sentences comes from spices like figures of speech, adjectives and adverbs

Let us learn about a special kind of spice today : Adverbs of affirmation or negation

Just like some of us pick out cardamom and cinnamon sticks in Biryaani

Let us learn how to pick out adverbs of affirmation and negation in sentences

Some adverbs of affirmation and negation are easy to identify because they end in ‘ly’

Sometimes adverbs of affirmation and negation don’t end in ‘ly’ such as :

An adverb of affirmation or negation is a word that confirms the truth or some equivalent expression

Or negates a statement or gives some equivalent

Let us look at some examples to understand this better

In this example the word ‘certainly’ confirms that Viren is going through a hard time

The adverb of affirmation in this sentence is ‘certainly’

Here, the word 'nothing' negates the verb 'eaten' and thus it is the adverb of negation in the sentence

The word ‘doesn’t’ is adverb of affirmation or negation in the sentence

In this example, ‘definitely’ adds force to ‘not’

Thus, ‘definitely’ confirms that the speaker won’t go for a swim, and ‘not’ negates ‘going for a swim’

This makes ‘definitely’ the adverb of affirmation and ‘not’ the adverb of negation in the sentence

Let us revise what we have learnt

Adverbs enhance adjectives, verbs and adverbs by adding meaning to them

Adverbs of affirmation and negation confirm or negate statements

That’s all Folks!