What Are Adverbial Phrases?

(with Examples)
Adverbial phrase is the term for two or more words which play the role of an adverb. Look at
these examples:

I will sit quietly.

(normal adverb)

I will sit in silence.

(adverbial phrase)

I will sit like a monk meditates.

(adverbial clause)
(When the multi-word adverb contains a subject and a verb (like in this example), it is
an adverbial clause as opposed to an adverbial phrase.)
In the examples above, all the adverbs tell us how the person will sit. They are all adverbs of
manner. When used to modify a verb, an adverb (including an adverbial phrase and an
adverbial clause) will usually describe when, where, or how something happens.
When (Adverbial Phrase of Time)
An adverbial phrase of time states when something happens or how often. For example:

I'll do it in a minute.

After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box. (Italian Proverb)

Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day. (Albert Camus)

Where (Adverbial Phrase of Place)

An adverbial phrase of place states where something happens. For example:

I used to work in a fire-hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.
(Steven Wright)

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings. (Ed
Gardner)

How (Adverbial Phrase of Manner)

An adverbial phrase of manner states how something is done. For example:

He would always talk with a nationalistic tone.

He sings in a low register.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. (Leo J. Burke)

The term adverb refers to a word class to which words like slowly, here, now etc belong .
Adverbials , on the contrary, is a functional label , covering all the syntactic units performing
the same function as single-word adverbs , that is, they are units which describe the action
denoted by the verb . These syntactic units may be Prepositional Phrases or Noun Phrases.

An adverbial can describe an action by telling us how, where and when an action is done .
Examples

* She sings sweetly . ( how)

* She has gone there. (where)

*He is sleeping now( when)

Instead of using single-word adverbials as in our examples above , we can use Prepositional
Phrases and Noun Phrases to describe actions .

* She gets up at 6 o' clock .

* He left home in a hurry .

* She has gone to the hospital.

In these examples we have used Prepositional Phrases as advebials .

In the following examples we are using Noun Phrases as adverbials :

* He worked hard all day

* She came back home home last week .

* They will join us tomorrow .

* She left for the US the day before yesterday.

* They opposed the government proposal tooth and nail.

Please note that the term adverb refers to a word class while adverbial refers to different
syntactic units performing a similar function, namely, describing the action performed by the
verb.

The basic concept of describing an action is provided by the term adverb while the different
realizations of the concept are provided by the term adverbial.