Fronted Adverbials: Introduction

A fronted adverbial is an adverbial phrase or word that is placed at the start of the sentence and before the verb.

Usually, they are separated from the rest of a sentence with a comma (as in this sentence!).

Fronted adverbials are used a lot in descriptive writing. They can describe how an action happened, where it happened and when it happened.

They can be used to show:

Click on the link to take you to the grammar section that explains the adverb type if you are not sure.

Structure

Adverbial phrase or adverb, followed by a comma, followed by the main clause.

Fronted adverbialCommaMain Clause
After the rain stopped,Marcus went for a walk.
Sometimes,I play soccer with my friends

TIP!

If you are not sure about what an adverb is or how they work, take a look at the grammar section on 'Adverbs' first.

fronted adverbials