be, feel, seem

extremely, fairly, very, etc.
awfully
You're here awfully early, aren't you?

a little, slightly, etc.
I'm sorry I'm a little early.

relatively
surprisingly, unusually
These discoveries were made at a surprisingly early date.

ridiculously
I have to get up ridiculously early.

for
It's a little early for lunch.

in
He discovered these pleasures early in life.

Early is used with these nouns:
abortion, adolescence, adulthood, afternoon, age, ancestor, arrival, association, autumn, booking, breakfast, childhood, Christianity, church, civilization, completion, crop, dawn, day, death, decade, demise, departure, detection, diagnosis, dinner, discharge, draft, Easter, edition, election, embryo, emergence, encounter, end, English, enthusiasm, entrant, epoch, estimate, euphoria, evening, evolution, exit, experience, experiment, explorer, exponent, fall, favourite, feminist, finding, flight, forecast, forerunner, form, frost, grave, hint, history, hope, hour, identification, implementation, impression, indication, infancy, influence, inhabitant, intervention, introduction, lead, leader, learning, life, light, lunch, mammal, man, manhood, manifestation, manuscript, marriage, martyr, memory, menopause, middle age, miscarriage, month, morning, mortality, music, night, observation, onset, optimism, origin, painting, parole, part, payment, penalty, period, phase, photograph, pioneer, pregnancy, promise, prototype, recognition, record, recording, reference, release, repayment, reply, report, researcher, resolution, result, retirement, return, round, session, setback, settlement, settler, shift, sign, skirmish, spring, stage, start, success, summer, sun, supper, teens, termination, time, train, tulip, version, warning, winter, work, writer, writing, year, youth

Early is used with these verbs:
arrive, awake, awaken, book, cite, detect, mature, mention, note, outline, quote, retire, rise, sow, wake