As far as I know, "quickly" has been the adverb form and "quick" the adjective form for some time now.

Dictionaries often list "quick" as a colloquial adverb only and not a formal one.

However, when I work with ESL students, I tell them that the boundaries between colloquial, informal, and standard are quickly blurring in regards to (among other things) the -ly suffix. I believe that one can say things like, "You got here quick" and "He got away as quick as possible" without being marked as colloquial in many discourse circles.

I suppose that the morphological marker carries less and less meaning and importance as English develops. When the -ly marker stops being critical for communication and starts just being a part of an ettiquette checklist, it will go away entirely, like so many of its morphological ancestors.

John Alexander

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:56 PM, Brett Reynolds <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

On 14-May-09, at 6:57 PM, John Alexander wrote:
I've been amazed at the loss of the derivational suffix -ly that routinely marks adverbs.

Is this a change? Some words, such as quick have always had both the -ly version and the plain one available as adverbs. Or do you mean something else? 

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada




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