Adverb?
editCan "lonely" be an adverb? I'm thinking about the song: Four strong winds that blow lonely, seven seas that run high. It's an adverb in my interpretation, but I'm not sure. — This comment was unsigned.
- It is not too uncommon for adjectives to be used that way, eg, "The engine was running hot." and "Seven seas that run high." It is particularly common when the putative adverb is clearly not a manner adverb, ie, those ending in -ly that have a meaning related to the way in which the action of a verb occurs. (See Category:English manner adverbs.) Furthermore, songs and poetry and "literary" writing often use words in ways that depart from normal speech and writing. DCDuring TALK 18:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
- Well, thank you for your answer. But I was wondering whether one should create an entry for lonely = adverb. There are entries for other adjectives used as adverbs without -ly, such as cold (as in: The steel was produced cold.) The question was whether lonely is an adverb in the line above, which seems to be the case. Now I'm not a native speaker and I don't know if you could find other sentences with lonely as an adverb. If yes, an entry should be created.