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adverb adjective

Hello

I have a big linguistics test tomorrow and I feel so stupid for being hung up on adverb and adjectives.

Here's a few sentences that for some reason I can't wrap my brain around:

The weather turned cold. (adverb)

I don't feel well. (adverb)

He doesn't sing well. (adverb) - I got this one right.

The soup smells good. (adverb)

On the practice sheet these were the answers (in parenthesis) that I put down but got wrong.
Is there any way to help me understand what I'm doing or thinking wrongly?
I even parsed the sentences and I just don't get it.

Thanks for any thoughts or tips to help me understand these.

Re: adverb adjective

We really have to look at the sentence and the usage of the word to fully understand because these words can be used both ways so it's tricky to spot.

The weather turned cold.
- The reason cold is an adjective and not an adverb is because cold isn't modifying how it's turning. We're describing the weather after it has turned. So we know that it's cold weather.

I don't feel well.
- Now this one is the trickiest of the bunch. It may seem like we're modifying feel but that's wrong. It's implied by the definition of well but we're describing our overall health. So well isn't changing the verb feel. We haven't changed the process we used to feel.

He doesn't sing well.
- Now this usage of well is talking about in terms of ability. So this is an adverb because we are modifying how he sings. We know it's changing the verb because it's talking about how well you do an action (in this case, singing). So this is changing how he sings.

The soup smells good.
- Once again we're not changing the way we smell the soup. We're describing how the soup smells. We're saying I smell this soup and because of how it smells, the soup is good.

Don't be discouraged because these are very difficult examples. In fact I'm not even sure I explained them properly because it's hard to describe. I do have a tip that might help you in some cases on your test.

So try to input your own adverbs or adjectives inside the sentence and see which works. It's especially useful to pick words we know the adverb form ends in -ly. Such as badly.

The weather turned badly.
The weather turned bad.

I don't feel badly.
I don't feel bad.

He doesn't sing badly.
He doesn't sing bad.

The soup smells badly.
The soup smells bad.


However this doesn't always help you because sometimes both will seem to work. So try to pick another combo of words to try out. At the end of the day it's hard to pick out but you really have to look at what that word is attached to.

Re: adverb adjective

Thank you very kindly!!
This was a super demonstration of how else to look at the sentences. I'm glad to know that these, seemingly simple little looking sentences are actually the devil in disguise
I really like your idea about trying them out with an -ly adverb word. I know it may not work on all, but it might just get me through enough if I'm lucky