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The original sentence:

Парк совсем не здесь

According to wiktionary the part of speech for these words are like such

Парк (noun) совсем (adverb) не (particle) здесь (adverb)

As seen above... there's no verb at all in this sentence but there are two adverbs. Why is this okay? And what other adverbs can I keep throwing into this sentence.

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  • you too literally understand the word adverb ;)
    – shabunc
    Jan 12, 2020 at 11:15

2 Answers 2

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Take the English equivalent :"Park isn't here at all." You can clearly see that "here" modifies verb "isn't". It's similar in Russian, but in russian verb "to be" is usually omitted in the present tense. ("Роза красная." -- "The rose is red.", compare to past tense, where verb "to be" (быть) isn't ommited: "Роза была красной" -- "The rose was red") So, "здесь" modifies verb, hich is ommited, but implied, while "совсем" adverb modifies "здесь".

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From a typical definition of an adverb one can see that a verb is not the only part of speech, potentially modified: Adverb is a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, etc. So our case is not necessarily about modifying two verbs; with some effort we can find only one:

Парк [находится] совсем не здесь.

The verb находится is omitted but is kept in mind, so let's try to create an analogy with a similar English version. The sentence allows for a grammatically close translation form, with the verb 'is' replacing the omitted Russian verb:

The park is definitely not here.

не здесь (=not here) is an adverb (здесь is местоименное наречие in Russian grammar) with a negation particle, this pair of words expresses a relation of place and modifies the omitted Russian verb (находится, represented by 'is' in English); the other adverb совсем (definitely) doesn't modify a verb, it modifies the adverbial phrase не здесь (не здесь -> совсем не здесь; not here -> definitely not here) and expresses a relation of degree.

So, one adverb (совсем) here modifies another one (не здесь, adverbial phrase with negation) and defines how much the latter one modifies the verb which is only meant in Russian version.

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