XXXVI. ADVERBIAL NOUN PHRASES
136. When we wish to tell how long, or wide, or deep, or thick a thing is, we frequently make use of such statements as these:—
The valley is nine miles long.
The street is sixty feet wide.
The water is ten fathoms deep.
The slices were an inch thick.
It is evident that in the first sentence the question how long? is answered by the words nine miles. Hence this group of words modifies the adjective long, having the same use as the adverb very in, “The valley is very long.” But the base word of this group is the noun miles, hence the whole group must be an adverbial noun phrase. We conclude from this familiar sentence that an adverbial noun phrase may modify an adjective.
What adverbial noun phrase modifies wide? deep? thick?
Make sentences in which an adverbial noun phrase modifies the adjectives old, tall, high.
137. The adverbial noun phrase may also modify an adverb, as in the sentence, “She came two hours afterward,” where two hours answers the question how long afterward? How do we know that afterward is an adverb?
Note.—A common illustration of this use is found in the familiar expression a short time ago, where the adverb ago (which is never used by itself) is modified by the adverbial noun phrase a short time. Think of five other noun phrases often used to modify ago.
Summary.—An adverbial noun phrase may modify an adjective or an adverb. In such a case it denotes a measure of some sort.
Exercise.—Select the adverbial nouns and the phrases of which they are the base words. Tell what these phrases modify, and what questions they answer.
1. About an hour later a big red fox came trotting into the glade.
2. When the stone was pulled up, there appeared a staircase about three or four feet deep, leading to a door.
3. The trail was perhaps an hour old.
4. After viewing old Fort Snelling, we walked a mile farther to the parade ground, and watched the soldiers drill.
5. An ordinary wolf’s forefoot is four and one half inches long.
6. Lobo stood three feet high at the shoulder, and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds.
7. If the crows do not kill the owl, they at least worry him half to death and drive him twenty miles away.
8. It is a curious fact about boys that two will be a great deal slower in doing anything than one.
9. When the eagle returned an hour later to the point of shoals, the net looked less strange to him.
10. Twenty-five years ago the American minister at the court of Turin was conversing with a young Italian of high rank from the island of Sardinia.
11. The largest aboriginal structure of stone within the limits of the United States has a circuit of 1480 feet, is five stories high, and once included five hundred separate rooms.
12. How many years did Jacob serve for Rachel?
13. The week before the election one of the candidates for mayor spoke to an audience of laboring men every evening.
14. That day I left the university, and my trial took place a little while later.
15. David reflected a few moments longer.