Pernilla Hallonsten Halling

fad

quickly

q’ura-da.
dry-fut
adv

‘In the hot time grass dries quickly.’

SPEED adverbs no SPEED adverbs

Figure 8.1. Languages with simple adverbs, with and without speed

(8.3) Mam (Mayan) (England 1983: 190)

cheeb’a

slowly

b’iincha-n-kub’-t-a
make-imp-dir-2sg.emp-2sg
q-mees
1pl-table
adv

‘Make our table slowly!’
Out of the 41 languages with simple adverbs, at least eight languages have adverbs denot- ing value. These are presented in table 8.2, and in the map in figure 8.2. Notably, seven of the eight languages with value adverbs also have speed adverbs. Hdi (Afro-Asiatic) is the only exception that has value but not speed among its adverbs. The languages with value adverbs are remarkably few compared to the ones with speed adverbs. Based on the predictions of hypothesis (8.1c), which claims that value is a semantic type for both adjectives and adverbs, as well as for general modifiers, this is not surprising. value can occur either among adjectives, adverbs, or general modifiers, or in more than one of these classes, in cases where they are attested. It should also be noted that most of the languages displaying value adverbs have relatively large classes of simple adverbs.

Table 8.2. Languages with value adverbs

Acoli (Nilotic) Hdi (Afro-Asiatic)

Bambara (Mande) Kambera (Austronesian) Bininj Gun-Wok (Gunwinyguan) Maltese (Afro-Asiatic) Bukiyip (Nuclear Toricelli) Nishnaabemwin (Algic)
In (8.4–8.5), two examples from languages with value adverbs are taken.
(8.4) Bambara (Mande) (Brauner 1974: 76)

Samory
S.T.
Touré sera
come
ka
cop
kèlèkè
fight
kojugu.

exceptionally

adv

‘Samory Touré could fight exceptionally (well).’

VALUE adverbs no VALUE adverbs

Figure 8.2. Languages with simple adverbs, with and without value

(8.5) Maltese (Afro-Asiatic) (Borg & Azzopardi-Alexander 1997: 17)

Meta
when
messu,
touched.3sg
tkellem
spoke.3sg.m
sewwa

well

u
and
bis-sens
with-the.sense
adv

‘When it was his turn, he spoke well and sensibly.’

In the languages that have simple adverbs, two other semantic types are also recurring,

though to a lesser extent than
speed. The first one is
noise, where concepts such

as loudly, quietly, and indiscriminately can be found. The second type is care, with
meanings such as carefully, with caution, and clumsily. Eight languages with simple adverbs display noise among these adverbs (one of them only marginally; see comments on example 8.6). All of these languages also have speed adverbs.

Table 8.3. Languages with noise adverbs

Bininj Gun-Wok (Gunwinyguan) Lahu (Sino-Tibetan) Jamul Tiipay (Cochimi-Yuman) Lakota (Siouan)

Kham (Sino-Tibetan) Nishnaabemwin (Algic)

Krongo (Kadugli-Krongo) Yankunytjatjara (Pama-Nyungan)

Two
noise
examples are found in (8.6–8.7). The example from Krongo is somewhat

marginal, since kídò ‘loudly’ is also a place Adverb meaning ‘up, upward’, and Reh (1985: 300) describes the noise meaning as secondary.
(8.6) Krongo (Kadugli-Krongo) (Reh 1985: 300)

na´a
cop
t`Ika`amù
lion
a´fa`ra`
inf.scream