ADVERBIAL GENITIVE

In grammar, an 'adverbial genitive' is a noun declined in the genitive case that functions as an adverb.

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Adverbial genitives in English

See also

Adverbial genitives in English

In Old and Middle English, the genitive case was productive, and adverbial genitives were commonplace. While Modern English does not retain the genitive case, it has left various relics, including a number of adverbial genitives. Some of these are now analyzed as ordinary adverbs, including the following:

★ ''always'' (from ''all way'')

★ ''afterwards'', ''towards'', and so on (from their counterparts in ''-ward'', which historically were adjectives)

★ ''once'', ''twice'', and ''thrice'' (from the roots of ''one'', ''two'', and ''three'')

★ ''hence'', ''thence'', and ''whence'' (from the roots of ''here'', ''there'', and ''where'')
The adverbial genitive also survives in a number of stock phrases; for example, in "I work days and sleep nights", the words ''days'' and ''nights'', while nowadays analyzed as plural nouns, are in fact derived historically from the ''genitives'' of ''day'' and ''night''. (That they function as adverbs rather than as direct objects is clear from the rephrasing "I work during the day and sleep at night.") The modern British expression "Of an afternoon I go for a walk" has a similar origin, but uses the periphrasis "of ''noun''" to replace the original genitive.

See also

★ English grammar

★ Genitive case

★ History of the English language