For example, in the sentence, "He didn't need a friend or a baby-sitter," would the not (n't) modify "did" or "need"?
2007-01-22 08:01:39 · 3 answers · asked by wolfect529 1 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
There are no adverbs in the sentence you've listed; adverbs are words that modify a verb or how it's being done. For example, "he ran quickly." Quickly (the adverb) is describing how he ran (the verb). Other examples are easily, stupidly, happily, etc. Most adverbs seem to end in "ly," but I'm sure there are exceptions.
Wikipedia says: "Not is an interesting case. Grammarians have a difficult time categorizing it, and it probably belongs in its own class (Haegeman 1995, Cinque 1999)."
2007-01-22 08:08:56 · answer #1 · answered by Lily 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
no. it modifies the verb.
in "He didn't need a friend or a baby-sitter"
not modifies the NEED because it answers the question, "what did he NOT do?"
2007-01-22 17:08:27 · answer #2 · answered by japonese 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Didn't" is the short form for 'did not'. 'Not' qualifies the word 'need' in the given sentence. As 'need' is used as a noun in the sentence, it seems that 'not' (or even "didn't", if you consider this as one word) is an adjective, not an adverb.
2007-01-23 20:07:55 · answer #3 · answered by greenhorn 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋