Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

Adverbs in theoretical frameworks

The extent to which adverbs are discussed in theoretically oriented accounts differs re- markably. This section discusses four different accounts that in different ways make important contributions to a discussion of adverbs. First, the syntactic theory Role and Reference Grammar is discussed in section 2.3.1. This is followed by a semantic account devoted to adverbs specifically in 2.3.2. Two typologically oriented approaches are then treated: Functional Grammar in section 2.3.3 and that of Croft (1991, 2001, 2003) in section 2.3.4. The approaches are summarized in section 2.3.5, along with a discussion of the importance of their contributions.

1. Role and Reference Grammar

Within Role and Reference Grammar (henceforth RRG) and its view on layered clause structure, a fundamental difference is drawn between arguments and non-arguments, or in RRG terms, between the core and the periphery (Van Valin 2005: 4). The core contains the nucleus, in which the predicate is located, and the arguments of the predicate. The periphery contains any non-arguments or adjuncts that might occur in a clause, as illus- trated in figure 2.1. In the periphery of the clause, two different types of non-arguments

Figure 2.1. Sketch of RRG clause structure. Reprinted from: Van Valin (2005: 4). Copyright by Cam- bridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

are found: adjuncts consisting of whole phrases, e.g. PPs, and adjuncts that are non- phrasal, e.g. adverbs. The non-argument nature of the periphery shows that its members are optional. In figure 2.1, the periphery is adjacent to the core, which may lead to the interpretation that items in the periphery modify the core only. But it is only the basic

structure of a simple clause that consists of a core and a periphery on the same level: ad- verbs and phrasal adjuncts can modify any clause level. In RRG terms, this means that there may be peripheries of the nucleus, the core, or the clause as a whole, as illustrated in the tree structure in figure 2.2, leaving the operators sketched below the example sentence outside of the discussion for now (2005: 19–22).

Figure 2.2. RRG tree with three peripheries. Reprinted from: Van Valin (2005: 22). Copyright by Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

A similar structure is found within the NP, which shows clear parallels to that of the clause, as pointed out by Van Valin (2005: 24). The NP as a whole may have a periphery. The NP as such consists of a core that may have a periphery, and the core in turn has a nucleus, where a periphery may also be found. These points are illustrated in figure 2.3.³

NP PERIPHERY_N
CORE_N PERIPHERY_N
PERIPHERY_N NUC_N
^{ADJ N PP} REL. CL.

the
big
^{bridges in New York City} that I saw

Figure 2.3. Noun phrase with three peripheries, after Van Valin (2005: 25)


On the clause level, the nucleus can be modified by adverbs such as completely and continuously (see figure 2.2). These are adverbs with aspectual meaning, and the scope of their modification is the nucleus, which contains the predicate alone (2005: 19). The corresponding level of the NP, i.e. the periphery of the nucleus_N (which in turn consists of the nominal only), may contain adjectives, nominal modifiers, and restrictive relative clauses (2005: 24–26). Comparing the two, the clausal nuclear periphery appears quite
³ Figure 2.3 is simplified for present purposes in that the non-restrictive relative clause does not follow the proper RRG structure, which would denote it as a clause with its own peripheries, cf. Van Valin (2005: 222).

limited in allowing only aspectual adverbs, whereas it is possible for the nuclear_N periphery to contain any kind of attributive adjective, nominal modifier, or restrictive relative clause. However, the scope of modification, being the nucleus, is the shared factor, rather than what types of items are found here.

The periphery of the core in the basic structure of the clause (see figure 2.1) may contain temporal adverbs such as yesterday, pace adverbs such as quickly, and manner adverbs such as carefully. The separation of the labels pace and manner is notable, as it is common to subsume the two under manner in semantic classifications of adverbs. Also PPs with a temporal or locational meaning may occur in the periphery of the core (2005: 19). Since the core contains the arguments of the predicate, the modifiers in the periphery in question do not only have the predicate in their scope (as in the case of the nuclear periphery), but the arguments as well. The modifying domain of the core periphery thus reflects the fact that the scope of manner adverbs is not clearcut, and that participants are involved to some extent in their interpretation. Comparing the core periphery of the clause to the core_N periphery, the parallel between modifiers in clauses and NPs becomes yet more striking: “The constituents of the core_N periphery would be the adjunct setting PPs and adverbials of complex event expressions. . . this is analogous to their location in the layered structure of the clause” (2005: 26). Some of the items that may occur here, such as phrases denoting location, are identical to some of those found in the periphery of the core on the clausal level (e.g. in New York City in figure 2.3 appears to be such as case).
Finally, the potential constituents of the periphery on the clause level are epistemic ad- verbs, exemplified by probably, along with evidential adverbs, such as evidently (2005: 19). Parallel to this, the NP-level periphery contains non-restrictive modifiers, such as non- restrictive relative clauses (2005: 26). As in the case of the nucleus, the connection does not pertain to the content, but simply to the scope of the periphery, which is the whole clause and the whole NP, respectively.
The term operator is crucial for RRG generally and is highly relevant to an RRG discussion of adverbs. Operators are grammatical items that may modify each clause level, such as tense, aspect, modality, etc. (2005: 8). These are not located in the nucleus, core, or periphery, but instead act as modifiers to each of these levels, and are denoted externally to these in the layered structure, as illustrated in figure 2.2. Operators such as aspect, negation, and certain directionals modify the nucleus: “they modify the action, event or state itself without reference to the participants” (2005: 8–9). Operators of the clause core can be found among other types of directionals, event quantification, modality, and internal negation: they “modify the relation between a core argument, normally the actor, and the action” (2005: 9). This can be compared to the periphery of the core, which includes adverbs of pace, manner, and temporal or locational adverbs or adpositional phrases, since these cannot be regarded as describing the action alone, without considering its participants. Finally, clausal operators are found among what is termed status (epistemic modals, external negation), tense, evidentials, and illocutionary force (2005: 9). For some of these somewhat more complex operators, a parallel can be drawn to adjuncts in the case of evidentials and illocutionary force, since items such as evidential and epistemic adverbs are located in the clause periphery.
There is another type of interaction between operators and adverbials, most straight-

forwardly between manner adverbs and tense operators. When a manner adverb is found before the tensed verb in English, it may function as a modifier on the clause level. This placement of the adverb renders ambiguity of meaning in examples such as Ruth cleverly hid the cash, which can either be interpreted as “the manner in which she hid the cash was clever” or “the fact that she hid the cash was clever” (Van Valin 2005: 20, cf. the discussion of Himmelmann & Schultze-Berndt 2005b in section 2.2 and Geuder 2000 in section 2.3.2). Placing the manner adverb before the tense operator may then also mean placing the adverb in the clause periphery. Similarly, when several adverbials are used in the same clause, they are constrained by their operator relations: their position and proximity to the verb is connected to the position and proximity to the verb of any related operators (Van Valin 2005: 20–22). For instance, in the example Leslie has evidently been slowly immersing herself completely in the new language (see figure 2.2), the evidential adverb is further from the verb than the other adverbs, and any attempt to rearrange the order will show that this cannot be done in too many versions.

The parallel between adjectives and adverbs as modifiers of nominals and verbs, respec- tively, is intuitively plausible. The RRG model also points to certain parallels between the levels on which various modifiers are found when comparing the NP and the clause. Such connections are nonetheless of a slightly different kind: we do not find manner adverbs and their semantically corresponding adjectives, or in the case of English, adverbs derived from adjectives, on parallel modifying levels: adjectives are found in the nuclear_N periph- ery, whereas manner adverbs are found in the core periphery of the clause. The RRG structure of the clause offers useful insights into the function of modifiers, illustrating that the view of adjectives and adverbs, as in this sense, on a par does not capture the whole picture. Rather, what the RRG account elucidates is that the NP with its sub-levels and the clause with its sub-levels are very different in nature, as manifested by their different types of modification. The nuclear_N periphery, where adjectives are found, has only the referent in its scope of modification, whereas the periphery of the core on the clausal level, where manner adverbs are found, may modify not only the predicate but also its partici- pants. It seems that this highlights a crucial distinction between adjectives and adverbs

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  adjectives have a narrow scope of modification, whereas manner adverbs modify the events denoted by verbs primarily, but may also take participants and other aspects of events into their scope, to different extents. This makes the modification performed by manner adverbs inherently more complex.
  

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