Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

Concluding remarks

Against the background of the generally elusive adverb category, the focus of this disser- tation was restricted to property words that are modifiers within predicating expressions. Such adverbs are more or less equivalent to what is often termed manner adverbs (cf.

chapter 1). Adverbs were defined as performing the function of modification, which gave the study a somewhat wider scope. In order to examine adverbs in their role as modifiers, they were compared to another type of modifier, namely attributive adjectives. The other function that property words are typically used in, namely predication, offered further comparative ground. Based on the analysis of encoding in adv as well as the compar- isons described, the identity of adverbs could be established. Simple adverbs are found in unrelated and geographically distant languages. The semantics of these simple adverbs

shows clear tendencies of the core type
speed
as well as the peripheral types value,

noise, and care. Taken together, these findings support the conclusion that adverb can be considered a typological part of speech.
Property concepts are generally more likely to be instantiated as adjectives, since prop- erties primarily pertain to objects. Much fewer properties are inherently concerned with
actions (e.g. speed). Consequently, fewer property words occur as adverbs. Some lan-
guages have a modifier class that covers the functions of adjectives and adverbs, which here has been labeled general modifiers. Some properties (i.e. value) apply equally to objects and actions, and they tend to be found among general modifiers. Apart from establishing the role of adverbs, the results thus also shed light on the internal structure of modification as a function, in identifying a third lexeme class that may be instantiated here.
The results from the constructional analysis illustrate that adverbs involve whole pred- ications, without being predicates themselves. Different functions, particularly property predication and property modification within predicating expressions, may be encoded very similarly, in certain cases identically. Such encoding overlaps imply that the two functions can be conceptualized together. In this way, the complexity of events becomes highlighted. This complexity appears to be inherited in part by the modifiers of events. Adverbs cannot be considered only on the levels of roots and lexemes in isolation. Since adverbs are modifiers that are found within predicating expressions, they must also be examined in the context of these predicating expressions, i.e. on the level of the construc- tion.
As a cross-linguistically prototypical part of speech, adverbs constitute a smaller cate- gory than other parts of speech. The characteristics of adverbs also differ from those of other categories in several ways. These differences are only natural, since adverbs ascribe a very limited set of properties to something that is very complex to modify in the first place. The smaller size of adverb classes and their different behavior do not contradict the clear tendency of speed words to be found as simple adverbs. With a core part of adverbs clarified in this way, it should be possible to address the many remaining questions that concern adverbs and adverbial modification.