Superlative adverbs compare verb uses with three or more parts. They attach directly to the verb and may or may not indicate how many parts are being compared. Some English speakers insert “the” between the verb and adverb. Some superlative adverbs require a phrase instead of a single word.
A superlative adverb is a form of adverb that compares verb uses involving three or more parts. It is a specific example of a broader superlative form, which is a comparison of three or more items. When only two items are compared, an alternative form called the comparative form is used.
Like other types of adverbs, the superlative adverb typically attaches directly to a verb. For example, a standard comparative adverb might be something like: “he laughed louder than she did.” Here, the word “stronger” follows directly from the past tense “rise.” The same example in superlative form would look like this: “Of all the people in the movie, she laughed the loudest.”
When using a superlative adverb, the speaker or writer may or may not provide guidance as to how many parts are being compared. In the above example, the reader or listener does not know from the context how many people were in the theater except that they can be sure more than two people were present. In some cases, the speaker or writer may provide additional context, for example, in a statement like this: “Out of the five, he laughed the loudest.”
Another important note about the superlative adverb is that in some English-speaking communities, it is common for speakers to insert the article “the” between the verb form and the superlative adverb. For the example above, speaking this way would produce a sentence like this: “Of all the people in the movie theater, he laughed the most.” According to many experts, the additional article is not grammatically necessary, but is, in many cases, a way to deal with some of the consonants at the end of verbs and at the beginning of adverbs that might otherwise cause pronunciation difficulties.
While some superlative adverbs are in the form of a single word, others require a superlative adverb phrase. For example, a native English speaker might say, “Of them all, he ran the fastest.” To many English-speaking ears, however, a different version might sound a little better: “Of them all, he ran the fastest.” Where the adverbial form of “fast” is used, the adverbial phrase form is often preferred to the single word form, “faster”.
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