Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

Event- and individual-oriented adverbs

The semantic analysis of adverbs by Geuder (2000) is based on two main assumptions. Firstly, the label adverb is limited to modifiers in adverbial function that are either derived from adjectives or that take the same form as adjectives. Although this definition of adverb is clearly demarcated, it also presupposes a unidirectional relationship from adjective to adverb, or that adverbs must arise from adjectives. This view is necessarily language- specific, with English as a point of departure. Secondly, manner adverbs are analyzed as “predicates of events”, a notion coming from the framework of event semantics (2000: 1). This is illustrated in (2.7a), as compared to the adjective in (2.7b), which is instead a predicate of an individual (2000: 2).

(2.7) (a) to open the package carefully Manner adverb: careful(e)

(b) a careful person Attributive adjective: careful(x)


According to Geuder, the manner adverb carefully in (2.7a) is predicated of the event to open the package, and has basically the same meaning as The opening of the package was careful. The attributive adjective in (2.7b) predicates something of an individual, here a person. This example pair illustrates that a regular lexical alternation is found with items like careful. Properties of this kind can then be ascribed to both individuals and events. Geuder raises the question of what the connection may be between an individual and an event sharing the same property. The question of how so-called e-predicates (predicates of events) and x-predicates (predicates of individuals) are related is pointed out as central in this context. Due to the regularity observed in adverbs that are derived from adjectives, Geuder argues that the “underlying lexical meaning of adjectives” governs this alternation (2000: 2). However, the analysis of examples like those in (2.7) is complicated by a familiar problem: the fact that the same adverb can be used in different senses, e.g. as stupidly in John stupidly answered the question and John answered the question stupidly, from example (2.4) in section 2.2. With such different uses of adverbs arising from the same adjective, Geuder questions whether they can all be uniformly described as predicates of events. If there are many ways in which one lexical item can relate to the same event, then predicate of event does not really suffice – a more detailed analysis is needed to capture the various adverbial functions. In addition to the term predicate of event, Geuder uses the notion of manner to specify how the adverb relates to the event (2000: 3). By examining different alternating pairs of adverbs and adjectives and the meaning of the properties that they denote, Geuder discerns subtypes of manner adverbs. Three such alternation pairs are illustrated in (2.8) (2000: 9).

(2.8) (a) He solved the problem intelligently. vs. an intelligent dog

2. 
   He left the room sadly. vs. a sad person
   
3. 
   They loaded the cart heavily. vs. a heavy bag
   

One aspect of meaning unites the adverbs in (2.8): they have the property of “shar[ing] individual-related meaning components of their x-predicating cognates”, which is argued to stem from the adjective found in their derivational base (2000: 10–11). The term oriented is introduced for adverbs with a meaning that refers to the individual in the same way as their alternating adjectives, since they show “orientation to an individual” (2000: 10–11). In other words, the meaning of adverbs such as intelligently is based on the meaning of the adjective: the property of the individual in question being intelligent. These are not manner adverbs in the pure sense of referring only to the manner in which an action is performed and nothing else (cf. points from Himmelmann & Schultze-Berndt 2005b in section 2.2). In contrast to these individual-oriented adverbs, let us now consider the alternation pair in (2.9) (Geuder 2000: 9).

(2.9) He opened the safe slowly. vs. a slow car

Interestingly, here the situation seems to be reversed: to understand what a slow car means, it is necessary to first conceptualize something ‘moving slowly’. The example in (2.9) accordingly belongs to the type of “x-predicates whose meanings have to be understood on the basis of the e-related variant” (2000: 11). In the example a slow car, two interpretations are also possible: firstly, the property of being slow can be inherent to the car, which is termed a generic interpretation. Secondly, a certain car might be going slowly in a certain situation, yielding a corresponding episodic interpretation. In both versions, the meaning nonetheless comes from the speed at which the car is moving, whether at a certain point in time or whenever it is being driven. The meaning originates in the event-predicating variant, which in this sense is underlying. In this way, Geuder concedes that the event-predicating variant can be the underlying one, despite the fact that it somehow seems to go against his initial assumption of adverbs always being derived from adjectives (2000: 12).

A third type of alternation is also found, as illustrated in (2.10) (2000: 11). (2.10) He danced beautifully. vs. a beautiful hat
In (2.10), neither of the examples seems to act as a base for the other in terms of meaning. Geuder connects this to how perception predicates such as see can take both things and events as arguments, e.g. John saw a girl vs. John saw Mary leave (2000: 11). Adjectives like beautiful, whose meaning is based on perception, is equally applicable to events and individuals in a corresponding manner. Nevertheless, other uses of beautiful /beautifully show a meaning ambiguity like that of a slow car in (2.9). In the example a beautiful dancer, two interpretations, ‘a good-looking dancer’ and ‘someone who dances beautifully’, are equally possible (2000: 12). In the example in (2.10), there is no such inheritance from one version to the other – rather, they are neutral.
Even though true manner adverbs may share some meaning feature with their corre- sponding x-predicates, they stand out against the group of oriented adverbs that display clear meaning correlations with their adjectival counterparts. Among these oriented ad- verbs, Geuder distinguishes three subtypes, as illustrated below (2000: 22, 34, 28).⁴
(2.11) (a) He angrily broke the door open. (transparent )

2. 
   John stupidly answered the question. (agentive)
   
3. 
   They loaded the cart heavily. (resultative)
   

In (2.11a), the agent is necessarily interpreted as being angry, and the adverb is labeled transparent because of its transparency in the meaning relation to the adjective counter- part. This can be tested in that the state of the individual can be asserted “for an extended period of time” (2000: 22), e.g. He angrily broke the door open, and he was still angry when he returned a few hours later. This test does not apply to true manner adverbs. In (2.11b), stupidly is termed an agentive adverb, since it refers to the agent John being stupid for answering the question, instead of refraining from doing so. Example (2.11c) contains a resultative adverb, which can be clearly distinguished from manner adverbs in that it refers to the outcome or result of an event.
⁴ These examples are repeated from (2.4c–e) in section 2.2.


In addition to distinguishing the three types of oriented adverbs in contrast to those that denote pure manner (using the term that Himmelmann & Schultze-Berndt 2005b attribute to Geuder 2000), Geuder proposes three lexical classes for x-predicating ad- verbs: predicates of dispositions, psychological states, and external (non-mental) states (2000: 33). Table 2.1 illustrates oriented and manner uses of each class.

Table 2.1. Geuder’s lexical classes of adverbs in oriented and manner uses