Prompted by a comment elsewhere I started to wonder why we need different adjective and adverb forms and how that situation ever developed. Wouldn’t one form be clear enough from the context?

Bob, can you give us an example?

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Wouldn’t one form be clear enough from the context?

Well, it depends on the language, and how the grammar is analysed. If you look at most common words in Mandarin Chinese, you'll see that many can be nouns, adjectives, or verbs without any change in morphology. (What I mean by change in morphology is the sort of thing, in English, that I think Bob is hinting at here: slow], an adjective becomes an adverb, slowly, when the morpheme -ly is added.)

Parts of speech (aka lexical categories these days) are not universal. They tend to be dependent on the grammatical analysis of a language. For example, adjectives and nouns are considered distinct categories in (the modern analysis of) English, but in Latin were subsumed under one category, based on morphology, i.e., declension, with two sub-categories: nomina substantiva (nouns substantive, what we today call nouns) and nomina adjectiva (nouns adjective, what we call adjectives).

In inflected languages, like Sanskrit, Latin, Ancient Greek, &c., words tend to change category by derivational morphology. Like the -ly suffix above. In English, not all adverbs end in -ly, e.g., fast, well, &c. And strangely enough some adjectives end in -ly, e.g., homely, goodly (archaic at best), friendly, &c.

Also, remember, redundancy is a feature of language and not a bug. If somebody utters "I speak English good" instead of "I speak English well", most of us can figure out what the person means. (And, in a language like German, many adjectives can be used as adverbs with changes in form.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

zm has clarified it well. Why do we need slowly when we have slow? Why can't we say "I walked slow along the road" instead of "I walked slowly"?

I suppose I should make it clear that I am specifically wondering how English (and other languages that make the distinction - I know not all do) developed such a feature. The answer "because grammar" isn't what I am looking for because I know that already. I am really wondering how and why such a feature might develop.

You mentioned "homely." I wonder how it came to mean something other than the logical "having the qualities of a home," as in British English, to "not quite but nearly butt-ugly" in American?

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Originally posted by Geoff:
You mentioned "homely." I wonder how it came to mean something other than the logical "having the qualities of a home," as in British English, to "not quite but nearly butt-ugly" in American?

zm mentioned "homely" but I think there is a fairly straightforward route from the English "homely" to the American one. The thing to remember is that while it does mean "having the qualities of a home" it is a bit more specific. It refers to a plain and simple home, somewhere warm and comfortable. You couldn't describe Buckingham Palace as homely, or an expensive posh house with twin garages and a boat dock (and you certainly couldn't describe that ghastly gold-plated Trump residence as homely.)
So, homely doesn't mean "like a home" it means "like a plain and simple home. From there it's a small step to apply it to a person considered "plain" rather than "beautiful".

Isn't Mandarin Chinese an inflected language too?

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Isn't Mandarin Chinese an inflected language too?

Not technically. Although there are minor edge cases where linguists might disagree. If you think of a spectrum from analytic to inflected languages, Mandarin is close to the analytic end, English is slightly more to the right of that, and languages like Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin are closer to the inflected end of the spectrum.

See:

• Inflected
• Analytic

For example, Latin (and most of its daughter languages like Italian or Spanish) inflects verb for person: e.g., Latin amo, amas, amat, &c. (I love, you love, he, she, it loves). But, English only really inflects for person for the third person singular of the indicative mood: I love, you love, he/she/it loves. The ending -s is an inflection. Mandarin does not inflect for person in its verbal system. 我是，你是，他是，她是 (wǒ shì, nǐ shì, tā shì, tā shì; I am, you are, he is, she is). If you look carefully at the characters for he vs she is, you'll see the characters are different (for gender), but the pronunciation is the same.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Ah - I was thinking of intonation, and not inflection. That's what is distinctive about Mandarin Chinese, right?

It's not unique but it is a feature that's used very differently in Chinese and English. In Chinese there are four tones (and no tone) that produce completely different words. In English intonation does matter but it changes the feeling or the emphasis behind a word. In Chinese it produces a different word.
Here's the example I like to use ( I could demonstrate better if you could hear me but I think you'll get the idea.)
Consider the word "no".

If you say it in a flat tone it's a neutral negation.
But say it with a rising intonation and it becomes a question.
And say it with a falling intonation and it becomes a sharp, almost angry word.
Say it with a kind of dipped intonation it becomes unsure.
Think of how you would say it in these situations.

Your insurance company asks you if you have ever had various medical conditions and you say "no" to each one.
You have asked someone if they have their own towel after swimming. They have said "no" in a neutral tone. You find it hard to believe so you repeat the word "no" as a question for confirmation.
Your child asks for the hundredth time if they can have some candy and you, a little irritated by the constant question answer "no!" rather sharply.
Someone asks if you want to go to lunch together and you are not sure whether you want to or not so you answer "no" but really mean that they might be able to persuade you if they try.

Now imagine that each of those ways of saying "no" actually has a different meaning, not just a different emphasis but meanings as different as "mother", "hemp", "horse", "scold" or a word that makes a statement into a question.(Those are actually five of the meanings of "ma" with different tones.)

Yep, I totally get it, Bob. Thank you.

As I said, my 5-year-old granddaughter is learning Mandarin in school, and it is amazing to me how much she seems to have learned already, in just 2 months. She is singing songs and talking. Of course I have no idea if any of it is right.