Re: Adverb - certainly
bmo wrote:1. Certainly, you are beautiful. ---- Certainly is an adverb modifying the entire sentence "you are beautiful."
I believe you are correct here.
Just to clarify, a predicate adjective is just another name for a subject complement which is an adjective, and like wise for a predicate noun.
bmo wrote:2. You are certainly beautiful. --- Beautiful is a subject compliment, an adjective predicate? Certainly modifies beautiful.
Also correct.
Beautiful is the predicate adjective used with the linking verb
to be.
Certainly modifies
beautiful just as any other adverb can modify the adjective. You could say, "You are very beautiful", or "You are interestingly beautiful" (any adverb can work).
bmo wrote:3. You are certainly a beautiful girl. A beautiful girl is a subject compliment, a noun predicate? Certainly modifies "a beautiful girl."
Here,
a beautiful girl is a predicate noun. The difference is now that we have a predicate noun instead of a predicate adjective,
certainly can no longer modify the predicate (since adverbs can't modify nouns). Because of this,
certainly modifies the linking verb. It modifies
how she
is a beautiful girl.
These are other examples: "You are simply a beautiful girl" (emphasizes that there is little more than the quality of being a beautiful girl applied to her). "You are subtly a beautiful girl" (emphasizes that the quality of her being a beautiful girl was not obvious to the speaker).
Hope this helps
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