Be loquacious and softly reprove (5)
I believe the answer is:
prate
'reprove' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'be loquacious and softly' is the wordplay.
'be loquacious' becomes 'rate' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'softly' becomes 'p' (short for piano, musical term for softly).
'rate' after 'p' is 'PRATE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for prate that I've seen before include "Rabbit on" , "Talk long and foolishly" , "Tattle, chatter" , "Talk foolishly - blab" , "Talk too much" .)