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Summary of semantic types for adverbs
The most prominent result discussed in this chapter is the centrality of speed for adverbs. speed is by far the most common semantic type in the simple adverb classes, found in the great majority of sample languages with simple adverbs (38/41). However, speed is found in not even half of the general modifier classes (8/20). Here, value is instead the prominent semantic type occuring in the majority of general modifier classes (16/20). This is expected, since the function of general modifiers covers those of adjectives and adverbs,
and value is a semantic prototype for both. Five languages that have lexicalization
tendencies in adv were also discussed, with speed attested in four patterns and value in two. Finally, in seven out of eight languages with adverbial affixes, speed affixes are found. This semantic type is thus not only attested among simple adverbs in languages
speed, time, and aspect
across the world, but is being lexicalized in others, and has also been grammaticalized in a number of unrelated and geographically distant languages.
speed, time, and aspect
In Dixon’s (1982 [1977]) study on adjectives, speed is the only semantic type stated to be found in the adverb classes of a few languages. As shown in the previous sections, speed is also the most prominent semantic type for adverbs, although it is not the only one. What, then, are the characteristics of speed that make it so central to adverbs? It is intuitive that speed is essential to action, the semantic prototype of verbs (cf. Croft 2001: 88). Actions can be performed quickly or slowly, among other types of manner.
However, both
speed
and action
are also intimately connected to
time, as will be
discussed in the present section.
The connection between speed and time as semantic domains for adjectives has been discussed in detail by Plungian & Rakhilina (2013). Traditionally, space has been treated
as important for the understanding of
speed, partly based on the definition of
speed
within physics: Velocity = Space/Time (2013: 349). By this formula, speed can be un-
derstood as “a kind of space, namely the distance traveled by an object divided by the
duration of the interval” (2013: 349). But the linguist’s understanding of speed must
differ from the physicist’s, since the former is not based on distance: it concerns “the relative duration of an event as compared to an average norm” according to Plungian & Rakhilina (2013: 350). This also reveals an important distinction between two types of
speed meanings: speed that pertains to duration, e.g. eat quickly, and speed that de-
scribes punctual events, yielding an “immediate reading”, e.g. answer quickly (2013: 351). In many languages, these two meanings are expressed by the same lexeme, but they can also be lexicalized separately. In Russian, the example bystro ‘quickly’ can be used in both cases, whereas skoro ‘soon’ primarily yields the immediate reading (2013: 352). The two distinct meanings are evident also in the respective antonyms, where bystro ‘quickly’ is paired with medlenno ‘slowly’, whereas the immediate reading of bystro instead has the antonym dolgo ne combined with imperfective, meaning ‘took a long time to’ (2013: 352). This could be argued also for English in the pairs eat quickly vs. eat slowly and answer quickly vs. take a long time to answer.
Plungian & Rakhilina (2013) compare high speed and low speed, outlining a rich high speed domain and a much more limited low speed domain, based on examples from Russian and other Slavic languages. A parallel can be drawn to the frequent speed examples in the present study, which often mean quickly /fast and less often slowly. Dis- cussing the sources for speed adjectives, Plungian & Rakhilina (2013) show that those adjectives that denote high speed frequently arise from expressions of falling and run- ning, whose agents are quick (2013: 352). There is also a less dominant source in “terms
for perceptually salient physical properties, such as ‘light, flying’ ” (2013: 353). time is
further attested as the result of semantic shift of speed words, on the one hand, as in
the example živoj ‘alive’ and bodryj ‘vigorous’ shifting to živo, bodro ‘quickly’, and on the other hand, as the source for other shifts, as in the case of naglo ‘suddenly’ shifting to naglyj ‘insolent’. That this metaphoric change goes in both directions supports the
proposed close connection between
time
and
speed
yet further. Other more general
semantic changes of speed reveal two main patterns. Firstly, intensifiers may come from
speed words, as exemplified by Polish bardzo ‘very’, which comes from a Slavic root
meaing ‘swift, fast’, as found synchronically, e.g., in the Bulgarian bărz and Serbian brz (2013: 356). This is motivated by the association of high speed with compression, lead- ing to intensification. Secondly, speed words have been found to develop into temporal or conditional connectors, which is illustrated by the Polish skoro ‘if’. This is assumed to have arisen through the immediate meaning, which is still attested in Russian (see above), and with another stage found in the Serbian meaning ‘recently’, and yet other meaning shifts found in ‘almost’, ‘as soon as’, and finally ‘if’, as found in Slovak, Czech, and Polish (2013: 356).
Based on their findings from Russian and other Slavic languages, Plungian & Rakhilina (2013) conclude that speed does not rely directly on space, but rather on time, and that “since [speed] is sensitive to actionality, it is closer to aspect than to tense” (2013: 358). This last point is crucial for the purpose of this dissertation: although the focus here is primarily on property words, in which aspect must be considered to be rather peripheral, the centrality of speed for adverbs also makes aspect significant for adverbs.
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