I'm curious about the phrase “dearly beloved”. – It looks to me to be a phrase consisting of an adverb (*dearly*) modifying a noun (*beloved*). But I thought adverbs could only modify verbs or adjectives?

So what am I missing here? What are the parts of speech of this phrase, and how do they go together?

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**Edit:** I’m thinking of the noun phrase (as used, e.g. in addressing someone). Originally I encountered this in the phrase in a Bad Religion song by the same name. In which the chrorus is:

```
Dearly beloved, dearly beloved, dearly beloved
Make no mistake, despite our traits, I've seldom seen
I can't relate to you
I can't relate to you

```

But wikipedia has a whole long list of [novels, songs etc. with “Dearly Beloved” as a title](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dearly_Beloved).

I realise (as pointed out in the comments below) that *dearly beloved* might also be interpreted as a verb phrase, but my question is not intended to be about that.