Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

6.5. Conclusion

In this chapter, the encoding overlaps of attr, pred, and adv have been examined at the root, word form, and lexeme levels. The word form level was included primarily to show that this is yet another level required for a complete analysis, which may be important for certain languages outside of the sample. The root and lexeme levels are nonetheless the most useful for the present study. The two most common overlaps differ for the root and lexeme levels. A large majority of sample languages have a root overlap of all three functions, while over half of the languages display the same overlap on the lexeme level.

6. 
   Results II: Overlaps at the root, form, and lexeme levels
   

The root level overlap illustrates that it is very common among the sample languages to have all three functions related by the use of the same root. By contrast, the lexeme level shows that the use of the same independent lexemes is less common than roots in all three functions, but still quite common. In the lexeme level overlap of all three functions, the most common type is the simple lexeme used in all three functions. This points to the need for a term for those items that cover the functions of adjectives and adverbs. For this purpose, I have proposed the term general modifiers. At the lexeme level, the overlap of attr and pred is more common than that of all three functions. At the root level, the overlap of attr and pred is slightly less common, attested in over a third of the languages. This can be explained by the fact that several of the languages with an [attr pred] lexeme overlap have roots in the overlap in question that occur as roots in all three functions (i.e. an [attr pred adv] root overlap). The results for attr and pred confirm the status of adjectives as occurring in both these functions. Perhaps more surprising is the overlap of pred and adv, attested in five languages at the root level and six languages at lexeme level. Four of these languages are the same for the two levels. This means that for four languages, the simple adverb consists of a root alone. Although this is not a common overlap, the languages in which it is attested are unrelated and located in geographically distant parts of the world. This illustrates that pred and adv can be lexicalized together, and that, just as many languages have predicative adjectives, there are also languages with predicative adverbs. This chapter has illustrated the overlaps of attr, pred, and adv on the root and lexeme levels. In the next chapter, we turn to overlaps in the form of whole constructions.

6.