Investigating the performance of Iraqi EFL university students in using the correspondent adjectives and adverbs

Abstract EN

The correspondence between adjectives and adverbs comes from that most of the adverbs are derived from adjectives by suffixation.

Furthermore, there is, sometimes, correspondence between constructions containing adjectives and constructions containing the corresponding adverbs.

What is more, some adverbs have the same form of their corresponding adjectives and some adverbs have two forms: one of them is similar to the adjective and the other ends with (-ly).

The problem of this study rises when Iraqi EFL university students fail to distinguish adverbs from adjectives as they consider the adjectives that end with (ly) as adverbs.

For the adverbs that have two forms, the students fail to recognize which form corresponds the adjective.

Also, the students fail to paraphrase sentences with adjectives to sentences with their corresponding adverbs and vise-versa.

Accordingly, it is hypothesized that : 1- Iraqi EFL university students are expected to face difficulty in recognizing the adverbs and distinguishing them from the adjectives that end with (-ly).

2- For the adverbs that have two forms one of them is similar to the adjective and the other is inflected with (-ly), such learners are expected to face more difficulty in recognizing the form of the adverb that corresponds the adjective.

3- The same students are expected to face difficulty in paraphrasing sentences with adjectives to sentences having their corresponding adverbs and vise-versa.