Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

Adverbial modification and predication

Predication is important for the present discussion of modification for two major reasons. Firstly, adverbial modification occurs within predicating expressions. As we shall see in the coming chapters, it is not straightforward how this location of one within the other affects the relation between modifier and predicate. In the expanded version of semantic classes and discourse functions in table 3.1, this relation is illustrated by the adjacency of modification within predication and predication as such. The second reason for discussing predication is that it is common to define manner adverbs as secondary predicates, as an alternative to defining them as modifiers. In the following two sections, I will first discuss the relation between modification and primary predication in general (section 3.3.1), and then how modification relates to secondary predication (section 3.3.2). Following this, secondary predicates will be discussed in connection to complex predicates (section 3.3.3). Finally, I will address the question of whether manner adverbs can be classified as secondary predicates (section 3.3.4). Although it is perhaps more common to use the term main predicate or predication (cf. e.g. Himmelmann & Schultze-Berndt 2005b), I have chosen the term primary predication in order to consistently contrast this with secondary predication.

1. Adverbial modification and primary predication

When modification is defined as a discourse function, predication automatically gets a central role, at least for adverbial modification. Predication is the primary function that modification is a secondary or accessory function to, since adverbs are modifiers in predicating expressions. However, there are cases that partly blur the distinction between modification and predication, concerned with information structure and more specifically focus. According to Lambrecht (1994: 207), focus can be defined as “that portion of a proposition which cannot be taken for granted at the time of speech” or “the unpredictable or pragmatically non-recoverable element in an utterance”. In English, focus is realized by accent, as indicated by small caps in (3.7).

(3.7) Mary sings loudly.

When an English manner adverb is used as a modifier within a predicating expression and at the same time is focused, something happens to the manner adverb: semantically, it becomes predicate-like. As loudly is focused in (3.7), this manner adverb denotes ‘the portion of the proposition which cannot be taken for granted’. More simply put, loudly may be defined as the new information.³ In (3.7), the semantic component of the modifier status of loudly is thus weakened. It is no longer really the case that the meaning of the

expression Mary sings loudly is of the same kind as the meaning of the expression
Mary sings. Rather, something new is commented about Mary’s singing. The discourse component is also weakened, since the focused loudly appears to perform the function of predication, rather than modification. The syntactic component nonetheless remains, since the expression Mary sings loudly has the same syntactic properties as Mary sings. Certain languages have specific morphosyntactic strategies for marking focus, such as a syntactic position that signals focus. Hungarian (Uralic) is famous for its pre-verbal focus position (see e.g. É. Kiss 2002), illustrated in (3.8). In (3.8a), an object NP is exemplified in this position, and in (3.8b), an auxiliary is focused. Also Adverbs denoting manner
can be focused in this way, as illustrated in (3.8c).

(3.8) Hungarian (Uralic) (Kenesei 1998: 69, 75, 79)

1. 
   Péter
   

Peter