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‘Approximately’ is an adverb and modifies a verb. Does that mean for example that ‘approximately five people’ refers to five people until there’s a verb included?

So my answer is: ‘approximately five people’ without a verb refers just to five people, and after a verb is included, for example ‘approximately five people have immunity against the virus’ it means ‘four to six people have immunity against the virus’?

++ Aren’t numerals determiners? Can adverb ‘approximately’ modify determiners?

user284747
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  • Approximately, as an adverb, requires a verb. There is no meaning without a verb. So "approximately five people" as a response (say in dialogue) only makes sense if you assume a verb (approximately five people were present). – FeliniusRex - gone Dec 01 '21 at 13:37
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    @FeliniusRex How would you explain "My car, approximately 20 feet long, does not fit into a standard parking space." It sure sounds as though "approximately" is modifying either "20 feet long" or just "20 feet", neither of which is a verb. – MarcInManhattan Dec 01 '21 at 13:48
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    @MarcInManhattan My car (which IS) approximately 20 feet long... – FeliniusRex - gone Dec 01 '21 at 13:49
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    Approximately is an adverb and modifies a verb. Or other constructions. It is simply not true that an adverb requires a verb to modify. – Colin Fine Dec 01 '21 at 13:54
  • @ColinFine Thank you. Just one more example: "Approximately 20 people participated in the riot." Surely no one would construe that as "People, who were approximately 20, participated in the riot." – MarcInManhattan Dec 01 '21 at 13:59
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    Yes, it is an adverb serving semantically as a quantifier, and as such is a dependent of the determinative "five", which it combines with to form the determinative phrase "approximately five". The bracketing of the NP is: [approximately five] people]], which is functioning as predicative complement of "be". – BillJ Dec 01 '21 at 14:30
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    It's very disappointing when some people obscure what is really simple by using terms not relevant to learners. I have to say that in my answer, I tried to give evidence for what I had to say: basically, this boils down to: adverb, adjective, noun. No one here is going to use correct CGEL terminology. Learners do not know it. And really do not need to know it to receive good answers. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 17:02
  • Well, it's an adverb, but in a way that's approximately an adjective. – Jules Dec 01 '21 at 23:04
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    Adverbs hardly ever modify verbs. It's really very rare. On the other hand, they can modify phrases headed by almost any part of speech apart from nouns. The adverb "approximately" can modify numerals. It can't modify verbs. It's not your school teachers' fault that they taught you that adverbs can be defined as words that modify verbs. They were taught that too. It's never been true. – Araucaria - Not here any more. Dec 02 '21 at 00:06
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. If "approximately" can modify numerals (here a cardinal number), this is really very simple. As I have been saying all along. But for you, then, in: The site was dated exactly. or: The site was dated approximately, those adverbs don't modify those verbs? – Lambie Dec 02 '21 at 00:41
  • @Lambie Those adverbs modify the verb phrase "[was [dated __ ]]", I believe. (Might be wrong.) – Araucaria - Not here any more. Dec 02 '21 at 00:51
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Let's date this site exactly. We don't have much time. I know what you will say: It modifies "date this site" a phrase, whereas most of use would say it modifies how it will be dated: approximate dating and exact dating. – Lambie Dec 02 '21 at 01:02
  • @Lambie Yes, how it "[will [be [dated __]]]". Notice that "approximate dating" and "exact dating" use adjectives to modify a deverbal noun, not a verb! – Araucaria - Not here any more. Dec 02 '21 at 01:06
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    Personally, I would avoid saying, and above all, writing "approximately five people" it's such a small number easily verifiable. Using "approximately" works better with fractions and larger numbers, e.g. "Approximately 3 in 10 employees continue to work from home" or "Police estimates suggest that approximately 30,000 protesters marched to the European Parliament yesterday evening" If only four turned up nobody would use "approximately" there. – Mari-Lou A Dec 02 '21 at 13:10
  • @Araucaria: About whether it can modify verbs... Let me know what you think of my answer. =) – user21820 Dec 02 '21 at 19:56
  • "the jug is approximately full" is a pretty obvious counterexample that shows that approximately can modify adjectives(, numerals, etc.) – smci Dec 04 '21 at 00:19
  • Approximately modifies "is" not the adjective or noun. Consider "We have approximately a half tank of gas.". Doesn't that say how you have a tank of gas? – John Douma Dec 04 '21 at 05:20

5 Answers5

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‘Approximately’ is an adverb

Yes.

and modifies a verb

Not necessarily. Adverbs can also modify adjectives, other adverbs, or in your case, numerals.

‘approximately five people’ without a verb refers just to five people

No, it still means something like 'four to six people'. If there is no doubt about the exact number, 'approximately' should be dropped.

You could arguably say it requires a verb because every clause requires a verb. But that is true for more word classes than adverbs ...

Glorfindel
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    You're right about adverbs but I'm not convinced of your application in this example. When you say something is something ('is' is also a form of the verb to be) you are essentially saying they are the same thing. The mathematical equivalent would be saying 'equals' - for example, "two plus two is four". Without the adverb in your example, you would be saying categorically that there are 5 people. Either that is true, or it isn't. So what is it really modifying? – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 13:58
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    It's still modifying 'five', and in the case of the OP the subject of the sentence, not the verb. "2 to the tenth power approximately equals a thousand" - then it modifies the verb (though I'd rather write "is approximately equal to"). – Glorfindel Dec 01 '21 at 14:08
  • @Glorfindel Normally doesn’t ‘approximately’ modify adjectives? Ex) He is approximately the size of mine. – user284747 Dec 01 '21 at 14:12
  • @user284747 I see no adjective there? One could argue it modifies either 'is' or the entirety of 'the size of mine' (I'd be inclined to say the first, not sure what the grammar books say.) – Glorfindel Dec 01 '21 at 14:15
  • The adverb "approximately" is semantically a quantifier, and as such is a dependent of the determinative "five", which it combines with to form the determinative phrase "approximately five". The bracketing of the NP is: [approximately five] people]], which is functioning as predicative complement of "be". – BillJ Dec 01 '21 at 14:28
  • I have to disagree. Websters says that "The meaning of approximately is in an approximate manner". A number cannot act in any manner. It is really describing the manner in which you are making the statement. – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 15:30
  • @BillJ A quantifier helps to quantify something, so it must add detail. For example, "nearly 5" means slightly less than 5. "Approximately" does not help quantify it. It makes it more vague. Plus, you can use it with quantifiers - for example, you could ask "How many are there, approximately"? – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 15:32
  • @BillJ There may not be any "be" at all. "Approximately ten rabbits were seen eating the rows of lettuce in the garden".//also, there are approximate numbers as opposed to exact numbers. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 16:11
  • Right, some quantifiers go before nouns and are therefore adjectives. Many people, some people, ten people. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 16:31
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    @Astralbee Of course it's a quantifier in the OP's example "approximately five people"; what else could it be? It occurs with numerals where it's used to indicate approximation. Likewise, "nearly", "roughly", "almost" and the like. – BillJ Dec 01 '21 at 16:32
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    @Astralbee I don't know what dictionary you're using, but it looks like you're taking one of several definitions and saying a usage is incorrect because it follows definition 2 instead of definition 1. Or maybe your dictionary is just poorly worded on this point. thefreedictionary.com defines "approximately" as "close to; around; roughly or in the region of". That definition is totally consistent with what Glorfindel says. – Jay Dec 01 '21 at 19:00
  • Adverbs less often modify words, they normally modify phrases. However, If one disregards interjections and takes the parts of speech to be: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, determinatives, subordinators and coordinators, adverbs can modify every class of word apart from subordinators (maybe) and co-ordinators (definitely). People used to think they couldn't modify nouns, but they can post-positively: events recently .... Adverbs are not "words that modify verbs"! – Araucaria - Not here any more. Dec 02 '21 at 00:40
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. She said briskly and brightly. – Lambie Dec 02 '21 at 01:01
  • @Lambie Yes, and? (Sorry, accidentally deleted this before!). – Araucaria - Not here any more. Dec 02 '21 at 01:15
  • It's not modifying "five," it's modifying "are." Without it, the implied "are" is definite. The adverb makes it indefinite or an approximation. – David Hoelzer Dec 02 '21 at 09:52
  • @DavidHoelzer In, for example, "There are approximately five people", the adverb "approximately" is modifying the determiner "five", which it combines with to form the determinative phrase "approximately five". The DP is functioning in (and is thus part of) the noun phrase "[approximately five] people]]", whose bracketing is as shown. – BillJ Dec 02 '21 at 13:48
  • @jay Words can have many synonyms and definitions. But if you can't substitute one for the other, you've no argument. I can say "It is 5 miles, approximately" and "It is 5 miles, roughly speaking". I can't do that with "is close to" without completely rephrasing. – Astralbee Dec 02 '21 at 14:06
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    @BillJ your own sentence. "are approximately". Think of it this way; "two times three equals approximately seven." Approximately has nothing to do with seven, which is a noun or a numeral. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs... Not nouns. Approximately modifies the verb "equals" just as it modifies "are" in your sentence. – David Hoelzer Dec 02 '21 at 15:05
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    @Astralbee While Webster's dictionary does define approximately as "in an approximate manner", Webster's dictionary also defines in an approximate manner can be "used to indicate that a stated number, amount, or value is an approximation". See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/approximately – slebetman Dec 02 '21 at 15:13
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    @DavidHoelzer "Approximately" modifies "seven", which is a determinative, not a noun. "Equals" functions like "be", so the analysis is the same as "Two times three are approximately seven", where "approximately modifies the determiner "seven". Incidentally, adverbs freely modify noun phrases, and even occasionally nouns. – BillJ Dec 02 '21 at 15:14
  • @DavidHoelzer "Be" requires an AdjP or NP or certain kinds of PP as complement, but only a very limited range of adverbs, though the latter would be semantically inappropriate here. Note that "approximately" is a quantifier. In the DP "approximately seven", it is a sub-type of quantifier used to express approximation. – BillJ Dec 02 '21 at 15:32
  • @slebetman "a stated number", yes. You are stating it in an approximate manner. Have you ever heard someone say "approximate 5"? Of course not. Yet you can say "negative 5". – Astralbee Dec 03 '21 at 08:34
  • @Astralbee I don't know what you are talking about but we are talking about the definition and usage of "approximately" and of course I and even you have heard people say "approximately 5". It's fairly common. Are you looking at a different question than this one? – slebetman Dec 03 '21 at 09:48
  • @slebetman Do pay attention, Bond. I asked you about the validity of saying "approximate 5", not "approximately". I'm trying to express that this adverb cannot be acting on the number. My best example is if I answered "truthfully, 5" - that would not mean that the number itself is truthful, rather that the manner in which I answered is truthful. Sincerely yours (that means I'm sincere, not you), Astralbee. – Astralbee Dec 03 '21 at 13:36
  • @Astralbee "Sincerely yours" means that the designation "yours" is sincere. "Yours" is an adjective, as in, "This book is yours." "Sincerely" is an adverb modifying this adjective. Yes, it's not "you" that is sincere, but, grammatically, it's not "I" who is sincere either. The word "I" doesn't even appear, and even if you want to say that this is an elision for "I am sincerely yours", that is still a very different sentence from saying "I am sincere." – Jay Dec 03 '21 at 18:52
  • @Astralbee A dictionary definition is not necessarily a synonym that could be dropped into a sentence in place of the word being defined. For example, thefreedictionary.com defines "dog" as "Any of various carnivorous mammals of the family Canidae, such as the dingo." I could say, "Fred has a dog named Rover." No one would say "Fred has a any of various carnivorous mammals of the family Canidae, such as the dingo named Rover." – Jay Dec 03 '21 at 18:56
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A number, a determiner, tells us how many items are in the set. In this sense, it is a modifier. When the number is two or above, the noun takes the plural form. [Note: modifiers can be nouns OR adjectives]

The book has two hundred pages

Bruce's workout lasted five minutes.

grammar quizzes

Numbers: one, two, three Numbers such as one, five, eleven, two hundred are cardinal numbers. We most commonly use cardinal numbers as determiners (before nouns). When we use them in this way, we can use other determiners such as articles (a/an, the) and possessives (my, your) in front of them. We can use cardinal numbers + of before determiners (one of my friends):

She loves animals and has two dogs, three cats and one rabbit.

Cambridge Dictionary

Some theories of grammar do not include determiners as a part of speech and consider "two" in this example [two hats] to be an adjective.

Wikipedia

Conclusion for purposes of learning English:
So, that means that the word "*approximately" in "approximately five people" (in sentences or as an answer in speech) can indeed be seen as an adverb qualifying the modifier or adjective "five" (the cardinal number).

Reminder: Oxford Dictionaries via Google:

adverbs
a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree, etc. (e.g., gently, quite, then, there ).

For example:

  • We drove approximately ten miles. [modifies the phrase "ten miles" or the number "ten"] This can be viewed two ways. But it is still an adverb as per the definition.
  • He only does the task approximately, not thoroughly. [modifies the verb do]

Answer; Yes, "approximately" is an adverb modifying the cardinal number used as an adjective.

Lambie
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  • Some of what you say is true but the logic is wrong and doesn't answer the question at all. Numbers can be an adjective, for example, "a ten-page book", but in your example of "this book has 200 pages", the number alone is neither a quality of the book or the pages. In the OP's example, '5' is not an adjective that describes the people, either. – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 15:47
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    @Astralbee Yes, the cardinal number 5 is a modifier before a noun and it is an adjective according to the Cambridge Dictionary. Adverbs can modify adjectives. Ergo, "approximately" the adverb modifies the cardinal number adjective "five". It answers the question completely, in fact. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 15:59
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    five minutes, 200 pages and 5 people are all examples of cardinal numbers as modifiers i.e. adjectives modifying nouns. Thanks for downvoting me. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 16:03
  • Well, I did give you an opportunity to improve the answer first! I only downvote if I think an answer is going to mislead, and for all the truthful quotations in this answer, I don't feel that it deals with the context of the OP's question. – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 16:12
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    @Astralbee Oh, you gave me the opportunity? There are approximate numbers and exact numbers. "Approximately five people" is really just: people = noun, five = adjective (cardinal number as adjective) and approximately an adverb. So simple! – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 16:27
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    @Astralbee Adjectives don't necessarily describe qualities of the thing that the noun refers to, they can modify the meaning in other ways. Virtual reality is not reality. A faulty proof is not a proof. An assistant chief is not a chief. An aspiring actor is not an actor. – Michael Kay Dec 01 '21 at 23:27
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In English, an adverb can modify a verb or it can modify an adjective.

If you say, "Approximately five people are needed to do this job", "approximately" is modifying "five". "Five" is an adjective modify "people". "Approximately" is an adverb modifying "five". It is not exactly five, but approximately five.

Other examples of adverbs modifying adjectives:

"He is an extremely tall man." "Extremely" is an adverb modifying the adjective "tall".

"A darkly dressed man entered my office." "Darkly" is an adverb modifying "dressed". "Darkly" is not modifying the verb, "entered". He didn't enter darkly. He is dressed darkly.

Etc.

Frankly, I think "approximately" is rarely used to modify a verb. You could say, "He measured the fluid approximately", meaning the act of measuring was not exact but approximate. But that's fairly rare. Usually we use "approximately" to modify an adjective. Approximately some number, approximately a direction ("approximately due north"), etc.

Jay
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  • Aren’t numerals determiners? Can adverbs modify determiners? – user284747 Dec 01 '21 at 18:59
  • @user284747 In this case, yes. There are a lot of cases where that wouldn’t make sense, but if a coyote ate one of my three chickens, I might say, “The sadly two chickens left are eating like nothing happened.” That is, it’s sad that there are only two left. The chickens themselves are not sad. They’re oblivious. – Davislor Dec 01 '21 at 23:00
  • And we could also say "it was very approximately twenty", where we now have an adverb "very" modifying the adverb "approximately". (Incidentally, "very approximately" strictly means it was very close to 20, but most people will read it as meaning not very close to 20). – Michael Kay Dec 01 '21 at 23:15
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    @Davislor: That might be an idiosyncrasy of yours; I wouldn't understand "the sadly two chickens left" as meaning what you suggest. (Though for that matter, even "It's sadly impossible" seems wrong to me -- I'd have to write "It's, sadly, impossible" -- so this might have to do more with the use of "sadly" than with the fact that "two" is a numeral.) – ruakh Dec 01 '21 at 23:15
  • @ruakh Okay, but you’d agree that “only two” is very common, right? So would you accept, “the sadly only two surviving chickens” as a better example? – Davislor Dec 01 '21 at 23:28
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    @Davislor: "The only two" is fine, but "the sadly only two" doesn't parse for me. I just can't use "sadly" that way. – ruakh Dec 01 '21 at 23:32
  • @ruakh Interesting! Where are you from, if you don’t mind saying? – Davislor Dec 01 '21 at 23:35
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    @Davislor: I grew up in the Upper Midwestern U.S. (Michigan and then Ohio), but I've lived in the Pacific Northwest for the past several years. How about yourself? – ruakh Dec 01 '21 at 23:37
  • @ruakh That’s even more interesting. Grew up all over the place, but mostly in Wisconsin, live in the PNW. And yet we use the word very differently. A quick Google search turns up thousands of examples (such as, “I shall certainly be reading the second of the sadly only two collections of his work.”). – Davislor Dec 01 '21 at 23:39
  • @ruakh This usage was considered a gauche neologism a century ago, however. Etiquette books then told people to say, “It is to be hoped” instead of “hopefully,” “It is fortunate” instead of “fortunately,” and so on, unless the adverb modifies a verb. – Davislor Dec 01 '21 at 23:43
  • @ruakh You seem to use “sadly” more conservatively than I do—am I correct that you would accept, “The sadly-singing swan,” as meaning that the swan sang sadly? Do you similarly reject, “I was able to catch the luckily also-delayed flight,” “The fortunately well-timed visit,” and so forth? – Davislor Dec 01 '21 at 23:48
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    @Davislor: I'm certainly familiar with sadly, fortunately, luckily, hopefully, happily, etc., as sentence adverbs meaning roughly "It's [blah] that" or "I'm [blah] that"; it's just embedding them in the middle of a noun phrase, modifying part of that phrase, that doesn't seem to work for me. (But, yes, I would understand "the sadly-singing swan" to mean that the swan was singing sadly. Are you saying that you wouldn't understand it that way?) – ruakh Dec 01 '21 at 23:56
  • @Davislor: The example you quote from a Google search sounds less bad to me, though, maybe because the "shall" signals that I'm going to have to make some allowances for grammar different from my own? :-P I would phrase "the sadly only two collections" as "what are sadly the only two collections", optionally with commas around "sadly". – ruakh Dec 02 '21 at 00:00
  • @ruakh We’d both understand “the sadly-singing swan” the same way. I was just checking. “I shall” was considered the proper conjugation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at the same time “the sadly only two” was more widely considered incorrect. – Davislor Dec 02 '21 at 00:12
  • You have repeated my answer but provided no proof but I guess the OP is not interested in the proof. – Lambie Dec 02 '21 at 00:31
  • @Lambie I’m interested in the proof. – user284747 Dec 02 '21 at 08:22
  • @user284747 If that is so, I invite you to read my answer. – Lambie Dec 02 '21 at 15:45
  • @MichaelKay - Very approximately is not used but we get your point. No reason to mention it a third time. – EllieK Dec 03 '21 at 14:11
  • @user284747 https://www.wordnik.com/words/adverb – Jay Dec 03 '21 at 18:46
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Simply put, "approximately" is an adverb that modifies the numeral determiner "five", resulting in "approximately five" behaving as a numeral adjective. This is in principle no different from how the adverb "very" modifies "big" in "very big mistake"; in general an adverb functions as a modifier that takes a phrase of some type and returns a phrase of the same type. Special cases have specific names; for example a lexical unit with the grammatical function (noun→noun) that also supports degree are called adjectives.

Note that "not" is also an adverb, and can modify noun phrases, verbs, adjectives and even other adverbs (e.g. "not a book", "did not go", "not good", "not very good"). Each adverb can modify only specific types.

Unfortunately, it seems that most lexicons do not clearly distinguish the different phrase types that "approximately" can modify:

  1. Numeral determiner:   ~ five people;   ~ 30 boxes;   ~ 7 dollars.
  2. Noun phrase (when meaning a quantity):   ~ a kilogram;   ~ twice as long;   ~ the size of a coin;   ~ the length of the street;   the number of people here today is ~ the same as yesterday.
  3. Verb (when involving quantities):   ~ counting;   ~ computing;   measured it ~;   ~ speaking.

In particular, it does not modify the noun phrase "five people" because that noun phrase is not a quantity, just like "very big mistake" cannot be parsed as "very { big mistake }". Neither can it modify the entire sentence "five people have immunity against the virus" or the verb "have" in that sentence.

Anyway, I want to emphasize that we cannot prove that "approximately" does not modify something. What matters is whether an explanation (e.g. the one I just gave) has greater explanatory power and predictive power than another one. Greater explanatory power means being able to account for all the usages with fewer rules. Greater predictive power means being able to generate never-before-seen example usages that native speakers would not only understand but also consider as normal.

user21820
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    I wouldn't go along with your comment "... resulting in "approximately five" behaving as a numeral adjective". It would better to say that it's a DP (determinative phrase) functioning as determiner in (and thus part of) the NP "[approximately five] people]]". The term adjective for such quantifiers was abandoned some years ago in favour of 'determiner'. – BillJ Dec 03 '21 at 13:38
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    @BillJ: I understand that different people have different terminology and even different views regarding how to classify grammatical functions, so I don't have any objection should you have your own preferred system. Nevertheless, I think we surely agree that "approximately five" has the same grammatical function as "five" in that example. Correct? That's really the point I hope the asker gets; it is really just a matter of function. =) – user21820 Dec 03 '21 at 13:50
  • It's a bit more than 'preferred' -- pretty much standard, I'd say. I agree that "approximately five" and "five" have the same function, in my terminology that of 'determiner'. Note that 'adjective' is a word category (part of speech) not a function. – BillJ Dec 03 '21 at 15:07
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    @BillJ: I guess I'm outdated then, since "adjectival phrase" is a function type for me. =P – user21820 Dec 03 '21 at 15:27
-5

The adverb 'approximately' is really describing the manner in which you are answering, not really the answer itself.

One synonym of 'approximately' is the phrase 'roughly speaking', where the adverb 'roughly' is modifying the verb 'speaking'. You could say 'approximately speaking', but it isn't idiomatic to do so, and the word alone is really implying both.

Consider a similar example:

-How many cookies did you take?
-Truthfully, none.

The adverb 'truthfully' is not acting on the answer of "none" - a number cannot behave truthfully any more than it can behave approximately (and that's what 'approximately' means - in an approximate manner). 'Approximately' can only refer to the manner in which the answer is being given, and not the answer itself. You could also speak generally, hypothetically, and use these adverbs before you answer to show that is the manner in which the answer is being given.

You could also phrase your example as:

  • Approximately, there are 5 people.
  • There are, approximately, 5 people.

Sincerely yours (an adverb which means I'm being sincere, even though I'm not mentioned and there is no verb to be),
Astralbee

Astralbee
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    I wouldn't go along with what you say. The adverb "approximately" is semantically a quantifier, and as such is a dependent of the determinative "five", which it combines with to form the determinative phrase "approximately five". The bracketing of the NP is: [approximately five] people]], which is functioning as predicative complement of "be". – BillJ Dec 01 '21 at 14:27
  • It isn't a quantifier. Consider this question - "How many are there, approximately?" It uses the adverb 'approximately' without a number. How? The word 'many' is an adjective AND a quantifier. It is asking you to answer in an approximate manner, and that is why would could answer "there are 5, approximately". – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 15:37
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    Approximately 100 persons survived the accident though many were taken to the hospital. [No "there are", no "be" verb and no question]. It seems to be that you are the one suffering from flawed logic as you make assumptions about the speaker and the speaker's speech. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 16:07
  • @Lambie "survived" is the verb in your example. You've just scored a bit of an own goal. – Astralbee Dec 01 '21 at 16:13
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    Yes, I used another verb on purpose! First, to show that it's nothing to do with "There are" necessarily and, secondly, to show that approximately is not related to the verb survive in my example. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 16:18
  • @Astralbee I was of referring to your analysis of "There are approximately 5 people", as I showed in my comment. It's this use of "approximately" that the OP is asking about. – BillJ Dec 01 '21 at 16:51
  • I showed Bill approximately where the UFO landed. This is an adverb that modifies showed. I showed Bill approximately four UFOs. This is an adjective modifying four UFOs. Nothing was shown approximately here. This raises a question with me as to whether approximately four nouns is a correct usage. – EllieK Dec 01 '21 at 18:22
  • It is impossible for me to show someone approximately four UFOs. In such a case approximately is an editorial comment provided by the speaker/writer and applying entirely to the number of UFOs. In other words, the speaker does not know how many UFOs were present but they are making an estimate. It has nothing to with the showing. – EllieK Dec 01 '21 at 19:00
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    @EllieK The colocations are: approximate numbers and exact numbers. cardinal numbers. cardinal numbers are considered adjectives. Exactly 10 dollars, approximately 10 dollars. – Lambie Dec 01 '21 at 19:17
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    Approximately means closely, not roughly. More approximate means more precise (but don't use the phrase, because half your readers don't know that.) – Michael Kay Dec 01 '21 at 23:32
  • @lambie I completely agree that "an approximate number" is correct, where 'approximate' is an adjective describing 'number', a noun. It's the same structure as "a bad apple". But can you say "badly, an apple?" Of course not. A bad apple is not an apple that behaves badly. An approximate number is not a number that behaves approximately. – Astralbee Dec 03 '21 at 08:49
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    @Astralbee Now your logic is off because bad and badly are not approximate and approximately. You can do something badly and not be bad, right? – Lambie Dec 03 '21 at 14:37
  • @Lambie That's exactly what I'm saying. I might answer approximately, but that doesn't make me approximate. – Astralbee Dec 03 '21 at 14:50