adverb + determiner – English Grammar Profiler

Here are a few examples of determiners premodified by intensifiers.

There are hardly any phone booths left in this city.

TLC male India B1

We have nearly all the big automobile companies.

TLC male India, B1

It took me virtually no time at all.

Listen to this expert example

B1 point 48 in the category of DETERMINERS/quantity is defined as:

modify determiners with adverbs.

There is clashing information in the English Grammar Profile. The example they give for point 48:

Because almost all of the programmes are stupid.

However, ‘Almost all’ is B2 grammar.

The second example the EGP gives has no clash, yet if just follow the Parts of speech: Verb + adverb + article, we don’t get the type of adverbs we are looking for.

His name is Richard and since we were just little kids, we’ve spent nearly every day together.

If search these patterns in iWeb, we realise there are many adverbs that are not related to quantity:

_RR _DB

1 ALMOST ALL 197097
2 NEARLY ALL 87591

3 SO ALL 60228

4 VIRTUALLY ALL 41763
5 NEARLY HALF 35151

6 ONCE ALL 30636

7 ALMOST HALF 30572

8 WHERE ALL 26519 9 HOW ALL 23898

10 MUCH ALL 23291

11 LEAST HALF 20723

12 REALLY ALL 19821

13 WHEN ALL 19449 14 WHY ALL 14193

15 ALSO ALL 12230

16 JUST ALL 10453

17 WELL ALL 9200
18 ABOUT ALL 9169

19 ROUGHLY HALF 8681 20 BASICALLY ALL 8610 21 PROBABLY ALL 8371

22 APPROXIMATELY HALF 7702

23 EVEN ALL 7446
24 YET ALL 7439

These are the most common, and it suggests that this grammar point might be better dealt with as vocabulary.

A1: all, half A2:

almost, least, nearly (‘probably’ is not quantity)

B1:
approximately

B2:
roughly, virtually (‘basically’ is more a stance adverb)

The b1 and b2 are very academic!

Another search in iWeb for:

1 ALMOST ALL 199262 2 NEARLY ALL 88465 3 VIRTUALLY ALL 41953 4 NEARLY HALF 38092 5 ALMOST HALF 33309 6 LEAST HALF 21303 7 ROUGHLY HALF 9078 8 BASICALLY ALL 8787 9 APPROXIMATELY HALF 7918 10 LEAST ALL 1750 11 BASICALLY HALF 290 12 VIRTUALLY HALF 101

13 APPROXIMATELY ALL 80

If we attempt to follow the second example sentence, we get ‘question words’:

_VV _RR _A

1 SEE HOW THE 69612 2 KNOW HOW THE 23341 3 KNOW WHERE THE 22819 4 OCCURS WHEN THE 21806 5 UNDERSTAND HOW THE 21587 6 SEE WHERE THE 19477 7 HAPPENS WHEN THE 16707 8 KNOW WHEN THE 13380 9 UNDERSTAND WHY THE 12780 10 SEE HOW YOUR 12523 11 EXPLAIN WHY THE 12497 12 HAPPENS WHEN A 11545 13 OCCURS WHEN A 11345 14 SHOWS HOW THE 11239 15 EXPLAIN HOW THE 11030 16 NOTICE HOW THE 10009 17 SHOW HOW THE 9975 18 SEE HOW A 9843 19 NAME JUST A 9793

20 SEE WHY THE 9003

*If we follow the second example using:

_RR every _NN

1 ALMOST EVERY DAY 15721 2 ALMOST EVERY TIME 5425 3 NEARLY EVERY DAY 5347 4 ALMOST EVERY ASPECT 3653 5 SO EVERY TIME 3129 6 ALMOST EVERY NIGHT 3091 7 BETTER EVERY DAY 2740 8 OPEN EVERY DAY 2626 9 ALMOST EVERY YEAR 2466 10 HARD EVERY DAY 2460 11 ALMOST EVERY WEEK 2183 12 ALMOST EVERY CASE 2160 13 MORE EVERY DAY 2110 14 NEARLY EVERY ASPECT 2029 15 MUCH EVERY DAY 1880 16 ALMOST EVERY WAY 1788 17 NEARLY EVERY TIME 1535 18 ALMOST EVERY COUNTRY 1505 19 VIRTUALLY EVERY ASPECT 1487 20 ALMOST EVERY PART 1374 21 BETTER EVERY YEAR 1354 22 ONCE EVERY COUPLE 1348 23 ABOUT EVERY DAY 1313 24 ONCE EVERY WEEK 1285 25 ONCE EVERY YEAR 1201 26 ALMOST EVERY GAME 1182 27 ALMOST EVERY STATE 1156 28 ALMOST EVERY WEEKEND 1143 29 ALMOST EVERY TYPE 1139 30 ONCE EVERY MONTH 1088 31 SO EVERY DAY 990 32 PERFECTLY EVERY TIME 974 33 NEARLY EVERY STATE 956 34 ABOUT EVERY ASPECT 946 35 ONCE EVERY DAY 921 36 MUCH EVERY TIME 890 37 FULL EVERY MONTH 886 38 ALMOST EVERY CORNER 859 39 ALMOST EVERY AREA 840 40 BETTER EVERY TIME 834 41 ALMOST EVERY INDUSTRY 824 42 ABOUT EVERY TYPE 803 43 NEARLY EVERY YEAR 768 44 NEARLY EVERY COUNTRY 766 45 NEARLY EVERY NIGHT 746 46 ALMOST EVERY BUSINESS 721 47 NEARLY EVERY INDUSTRY 720 48 ALMOST EVERY PERSON 718 49 MORE EVERY YEAR 717 50 ALMOST EVERY ROOM 700 51 ABOUT EVERY TIME 699 52 ALMOST EVERY MONTH 692 53 NEARLY EVERY TYPE 683 54 VIRTUALLY EVERY INDUSTRY 682 55 BEST EVERY DAY 666 56 ALMOST EVERY MORNING 644 57 NEARLY EVERY WEEK 640 58 ALMOST EVERY SITUATION 626 59 ONCE EVERY HOUR 624 60 ALMOST EVERY PAGE 623 61 SO EVERY YEAR 620 62 ABOUT EVERY WAY 618 63 ALMOST EVERY KIND 617 64 NEARLY EVERY PART 589 65 VIRTUALLY EVERY DAY 572 66 TWICE EVERY DAY 571 67 MORE EVERY TIME 570 68 VIRTUALLY EVERY TYPE 569 69 ONLINE EVERY DAY 560 70 RIGHT EVERY TIME 550 71 NEARLY EVERY CORNER 549 72 NEARLY EVERY CASE 539 73 ALMOST EVERY MEAL 533 74 PRACTICALLY EVERY DAY 529 75 ALMOST EVERY CATEGORY 519 76 ABOUT EVERY KIND 500 77 NEARLY EVERY GAME 497 78 ALMOST EVERY COMPANY 476 79 ALMOST EVERY LEVEL 473 80 AUTOMATICALLY EVERY TIME 472 81 LITTLE EVERY DAY 452 82 YET EVERY TIME 443 83 ALMOST EVERY INSTANCE 435 84 ALMOST EVERY TURN 428 85 EARLY EVERY MORNING 425 86 ALMOST EVERY CITY 423 87 VIRTUALLY EVERY COUNTRY 422 88 ALMOST EVERY WOMAN 419 89 NEARLY EVERY WEEKEND 418 90 VIRTUALLY EVERY AREA 409 91 NEARLY EVERY WAY 402 92 ALMOST EVERY FACET 401 93 ALMOST EVERY RESPECT 400 94 NEARLY EVERY ROOM 390 95 NEARLY EVERY FACET 383 96 ALMOST EVERY EPISODE 374 97 WORSE EVERY YEAR 368 98 ALMOST EVERY PIECE 363 99 BETTER EVERY WEEK 363

100 ALMOST EVERY HOME 361

A2 Vocabulary:

almost, area, case, company, corner, full, level, nearly, once,

online, piece, so, turn, twice, type, way, worse, yet

Some people believe numbers can be considered determiners too. For example:

The latest estimates are that emissions will go down

by at least five percent during this induced coma.

TED