Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

Discussion

8. Semantic types and prototypicality

   1. Introduction

In section 5.2, it was shown that simple adverbs are found in genealogically unrelated and geographically distant languages around the world. A number of unrelated languages that do not have simple adjectives, but that do have simple adverbs, were also discussed. Accordingly, adverbs appear to be no less basic than adjectives. In chapter 6, it was shown that many sample languages have an overlap on the lexeme level of attr, pred, and adv, in the form of a class that I termed general modifiers. In this chapter, I will turn to semantic types. Just like there are core and peripheral semantic types for adjectives following Dixon (1977) (cf. section 2.5.1), there are core and peripheral semantic types for adverbs and general modifiers (see also Hallonsten Halling 2017). I will examine such semantic types for adverbs and the way they are manifested in the languages of the sample. First, I will describe the semantic types found among simple adverbs in section 8.2, followed by those found among general modifiers in section 8.3. This is followed by a discussion of lexicalization tendencies in the languages of the sample, and the semantic types attested among them in section 8.4. Several languages of the sample have adverbial affixes (cf. section 5.3.5). The semantic types of these affixes will be treated in section 8.5. Finally, semantic types and meaning shift are discussed in section 8.8, and the chapter concludes in section 8.9. Concerning the semantic types of simple adverbs and general modifiers, I put forth the following hypotheses:

(8.1) (a) There are several cross-linguistically recurring semantic types of adverbs, ranging from core to peripheral.

2. 
   speed is a semantic core type for adverbs.
   
3. 
   value is a semantic core type for both adjectives and adverbs, and also for general modifiers.
   

Hypothesis (8.1a) predicts that for languages that have adverbs, different semantic types ranging from core to peripheral can be discerned among them. Core types tend to be found among the simple adverbs of a language, regardless of how few these adverbs are. Other types are peripheral, meaning that they are found in larger adverb classes. These are also expected to recur across languages, although not to the same extent, since larger adverb classes are not as common as smaller ones. Hypothesis (8.1b) predicts that if

a language has simple adverbs, then
speed
will be found among them. If a language

does not have any simple adverbs, speed expressions used in adv may nonetheless show lexicalization tendencies, as we shall see in section 8.4. This is another way in which speed is manifested as a core semantic type for adverbs, or in other words, an adverb

prototype. Finally, hypothesis (8.1c) predicts that if a language has a class of general modifiers, then value tends to be found in this class, and that if a language has fairly large but separate adjective and adverb classes, value tends to be found in either or both of them.

2.