Adverbial Nouns
What is an adverbial noun?
Adverbial nouns are nouns or noun phrases that function grammatically as adverbs to modify verbs and complement certain adjectives.
Modifying verbs
Adverbial nouns are sometimes referred to as adverbial objectives. This is because they hold a position normally occupied by a verb’s direct object, yet they act as an adverb to modify the verb with an aspect of time, distance, weight, or age.
Time
- “I am leaving tomorrow.”
- “We walked an hour out of town.”
- “I’ll see you next year.”
Distance
- “The fabulous swimming pool stretches the whole length of the resort.”
- “I can barely see a foot in front of me in this fog.”
Weight
- “This block of cheese weighs a ton!”
- “Their latest shipment weighs a truckload.”
Age
- “She is 35 years old.” (In this case, the adverbial noun phrase modifies the adjective old.)
- “This wine has been aged 25 years.”
Complementing certain adjectives
Certain adjectives, such as worth and due, are able to take nouns or noun phrases as complements when they are in a predicative position. For example:
- “This coat is only worth a dollar.”
- “I think Mary is due an apology.”
Some sources also consider the word like to be an adjective that can take a noun or noun phrase as a complement, as in:
- “He is very much like your brother.”
(Other sources consider it as a preposition in this capacity, which would make like your brother a prepositional phrase.)
Likewise, worth and due are sometimes considered to be more like prepositions than adjectives when they function this way. However, there is not a clear agreement on the terminology that is most appropriate, because it is so unusual for nouns to be the complements of adjectives.
Finally, note that adverbial nouns are not the same as attributive nouns (also called noun adjuncts), which are used with another noun to form compound nouns.
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