Syntagmatic valency of adverbs and its actualization in speech

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. The adverb in English theoretical grammar

1.1  Categorial meaning of the adverb

1.2  Formal characteristics of the adverb

1.3  Syntactic functions and positional characteristics of the adverb

Chapter 2. Paradigmatics of adverbs

2.1 Semantic classification of adverbs

2.2 Lexico-grammatical subdivision of adverbs

Chapter 3. Syntagmatic valency of adverbs and its actualization in speech

3.1 Syntactic valency and combinability patterns of adverbs

3.2 Semantic and syntactic properties of adverbs of degree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1. The adverb in English theoretical grammar 

 

1.1  Categorial meaning of the adverb

In accord with the 3-criteria principle of the lexico-grammatical word classification (semantic, formal and functional), parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of:

1)  common categorial meaning;

2)  common paradigm (morphological form and specific forms of derivation);

3)  common syntactic function.

The categorical meaning of the adverb is secondary property which implies qualitative, quantitative, or circumstantial characteristics of actions, states, qualities.

The adverb is usually defined as a word expressing either property of an action, or property of another property, or circumstances in which an action occurs. From this definition it is difficult to define adverbs as a class, because they comprise a most heterogeneous group of words, and there is considerable overlap between the class and other word classes. They have many kinds of form, meaning and function.

Alongside such undoubtful adverbs as here, now, often, seldom, always, there are many others which also function as words of other classes. Such words which are different in their lexical meaning and also in their grammatical category (part of speech) but identical in their form are interparadigmatic homonyms (lexical-grammatical). Thus, adverbs like dead (dead tired), clear (to get clear away), clean (I've clean forgotten), slow, easy (he would say that slow and easy) coincide with corresponding adjectives (a dead body, clear waters, clean hands). Adverbs like past, above, in, up, down, about, since, before, over are homonymous with prepositions. There is also a special group of pronominal adverbs when, where, how, why used either as interrogative words or as connectives to introduce subordinate clauses:

Where would you like to go? (an interrogative pronominal adverb)

We’ll go where you want. (a conjunctive pronominal adverb)

Some adverbs may be used rather like a verb, as in “Up. Jenkins! Down, Peter!”, where the first word is like an imperative.

There are three adverbs connected with numerals: once, twice, and thrice (the latter being archaic). They denote measure or frequency:

She went there once a week.

I saw him twice last month.

Twice is also used in the structure twice as long, etc.

He is twice as tall as his brother.

She is twice as clever.

Beginning with three the idea of frequency or repetition is expressed by the phrases three times, four times:

He went there four times.

He is four times as bigger.

She is ten times cleverer.

In many cases the border-line between adverbs and words of the other classes is defined syntactically:

I called out to him as he ran past. (adverb)

I called out to him as he ran past the house. (preposition)

We were locked in. (adverb)

We were locked in the warehouse. (preposition)

He did everything slowly but surely. (adverb)

Surely you know him. (modal word)

The definition of adverb presented above, though certainly informative and instructive, also fails to directly point out the relation between the adverb and the adjective as the primary qualifying part of speech.

In an attempt to overcome this drawback, M. Y. Blokh defines the adverb as a notional word expressing a non-substantive property, that is, a property of a non-substantive referent. This formula immediately shows the actual correlation between the adverb and the adjective, since the adjective is a word expressing a substantive property.

Properties may be of a more particular, "organic" order and, a more general and detached, "inorganic" order. Of the organic properties, the adverb denotes those characterising processes and other properties. Of the inorganic properties, the adverb denotes various circumstantial characteristics of processes or whole situations built around processes.

The above definition, approaching the adverb as a word of the secondary qualifying order, presents the entire class of adverbial words as the least self-dependent of all the four notional parts of speech. Indeed, the truly complete nominative value is inherent only in the noun, which is the name of substances. The verb comes next in its self-dependent nominative force, expressing processes as dynamic relations of substances, i.e. their dynamic relational properties in the broad sense. After that follow qualifying parts of speech — first the adjective denoting qualifications of substances, and then the adverb denoting qualifications of non-substantive phenomena which find themselves within the range of notional signification.

The adverb is characterised by its own, specific nominative value, providing for its inalienable status in the system of the parts of speech. Hence, the complaints of some linguists that the adverb is not rigorously defined and in fact presents something like a "dump" for those words which have been rejected by other parts of speech can hardly be taken as fully justified. On the other hand, since the adverb does denote qualifications of the second order, not of the first one like the adjective, it includes a great number of semantically weakened words which are in fact intermediate between notional and functional lexemes by their status and often display features of pronominal nature.

1.2 Formal characteristics of the adverb

In terms of the formal criterion the adverb is characterized by the following features:

1)  the forms of the degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs;

2)  the specific suffixal forms of derivation.

The only pattern of morphological change for adverbs is the same as for adjectives, the degrees of comparison. With regard to the category of the degrees of comparison adverbs (like adjectives) fall into comparables and non-comparables. The number of non-comparables is much greater among adverbs than among adjectives. Only adverbs of manner and certain adverbs of time and place can form degrees of comparison. The three grades are called positive, comparative, and superlative degrees.

Adverbs that are identical in form with adjectives take inflections following the same spelling and phonetic rules as for adjectives:

hard — harder — hardest

soon — sooner — soonest

early — earlier — earliest

Several adverbs ending in -ly (quickly, loudly) form comparatives according to the same pattern, dropping their adverb-forming suffix. These adverbs acquired the form in -ly only recently and retained the older forms of the comparative and superlative:

quickly – quicker – quickest

loudly – louder – loudest

However most disyllabic adverbs in -ly and all polysyllabic ones form the comparative and superlative analytically, by means of more and most:

beautifully — more beautifully — most beautifully

cleverly — more cleverly — most cleverly

As with adjectives, there is a small group of adverbs with comparatives and superlatives formed from different stems (suppletive forms). These comparatives and superlatives are identical with those for the corresponding adjectives and can be differentiated from the latter only syntactically:

well — better — best

badly — worse — worst

much — more — most

little — less — least

All the problems connected with the adjectival degrees of comparison retain their force for the adverbial degrees of comparison. Some grammarians do not admit forms like more quickly, most quickly to be analytical degrees of comparison. They distinguish only two types of degrees of comparison in adverbs:

·  the suffix type (quickly – quicker – quickest)

·  the suppletive type (well — better — best)

Adverbs vary in their structure. In accord with their word-building structure adverbs may be simple, derived, compound and composite.

Simple adverbs are rather few, and nearly all of them display functional semantics, mostly of pronominal character: here, there, now, then, so, quite, why, how, where, when.

Derived adverbs may be classified in several groups. The two largest groups are those formed from adjectives and participles by adding the suffix -ly, e. g.: hopefully, physically, strangely, falsely, occasionally, lately, immediately, constantly, purely, slowly, charmingly, etc.

There has been a marked discrepancy of opinion concerning deadjectival adverbs in terms of two mutually exclusive types of morphological derivation – inflection and word-formation. Two views have been put forward, according to which adverbs are treated as either the inflectional paradigmatic form of a parent adjective or its derivative. The former view can be refuted if we proceed from the notion of symmetry/asymmetry of the semantic structures. The structures are considered symmetric if they are characterized by both quantitative and qualitative convergence of their sense components; conversely, the parent and the resultant semantic structures are considered asymmetric if they diverge either in the number or in the character of the meanings conveyed.

The third group consists of those that are formed by means of the derivational prefix -a (phonemically [э]) to nouns, adjectives or verbs. Of about sixty of them in more or less common use nearly half are formed from nouns: aboard, aside, away, ahead, apart, across etc. The rest are about equally divided among those formed from verbs, e. g.: amiss, astir; from adjectives — anew, abroad.

In traditional grammars such words are generally classed as both adjectives and adverbs and they are so listed in most dictionaries, which seems hardly justified since from the structural point of view none of them can fit the basic adjective position between determiner and noun (We cannot say the aloud voice or the adrift boat).

The fourth group of derived adverbs originally very small, but in present-day English exhibiting signs of rapid growth includes those formed by adding the derivational suffix -wise to nouns. A few adverbs of this type are well-established words like clockwise, otherwise, likewise; others are recent coinages or nonce-words like crabwise and actor-wise. In American English the suffix -wise is most active and can be more freely attached to many nouns to create adverbs like personnel-wise. Such forms are recognised in writing by the use of the hyphen.

Then comes a smaller group of adverbs formed by the addition of the derivational suffix -ward(s) to a limited group of nouns; home- ward(s), forward(s), backward(s). Most adverbs of this group have two forms, one with the final -s and one without, variously distributed. The forms without -s are homonymous with adjectives: the backward child, he looked backward.

The less common suffixes are the following:

-fold -like -most -way(s)

twofold, manifold warlike innermost, outermost longways, sideways

Compound adverbs are formed of two stems: sometimes, somewhere, somehow, someplace, nowhere, everywhere, anyway, downstairs, etc. There are fewer than twenty of these in common use.

Composite phrasal adverbs consist of two or more word-forms, as a great deal, a little bit, far enough, now and then, from time to time, sort of, kind of, a hell of, a lot of, a great deal of, at least, at most, at last, to and fro, upside down. Such adverbs are lexically and grammatically indivisible and form a single idea.

Considered in their structure, composite phrasal adverbs may be classified as follows:

1)  preposition + noun: at hand, at home, by heart, on horseback, on foot, in turn, to date;

2)  noun + preposition + noun: arm in arm, day by day, day after day, day to day, face to face, word for word, year by year;

3)  preposition + substantivised adjective: at last, at first, at large, in large, in full, in quiet, in short, in vain, of late, of old;

4)  preposition + verbal noun made through conversion: at a guess, at a run, in a rush, on the move, on the run;

5)  preposition + numeral: at first, at once, at one, by twos;

6)  coordinate adverbs: by and by, on and off (= off and on), on and on;

7)  pronoun + adjective (or participle): all right, all told, O. K. (all correct);

8)  preposition + pronoun: after all, in all, at all.

In point of fact most adverbs of that kind may be reasonably referred to as grammatical idioms. This can be seen, for instance, in the unusual absence of the article before their noun components and specialised use of the noun in its singular form only: on foot (but not on the foot, or on feet which may occur in free prepositional word-groups), in fact (but not in the fact), at first (but not at the first), etc.

There is a miscellaneous class of adverbs that have no formal signals at all to distinguish them in isolation; we know them as adverbs because of their positions in utterances, in which the other parts of speech are clearly identifiable. Many adverbs in this group are fairly frequent in occurrence: always, now, then, here, there, often, seldom, still, even. Others in this group are words which may also appear as other parts of speech, such as: downstairs, home, late, little, fast, stow, early, far, hard, near:

My friend is the world’s fastest runner. (adjective)

The water was rising very fast. (adverb)

It is hard to believe that she’s only nine. (adjective)

He was still breathing hard after his run. (adverb)

Formations of the type from outside, till now, before then, etc. cannot be included in the word-building sets of adverbs. It is not difficult to see that such formations differ in principle from the ones cited above. The difference consists in the fact that their parts are semantically not blended into an indivisible lexemic unity and present combinations of a preposition with a peculiar adverbial substantive — a word occupying an intermediary lexico-grammatical status between the noun and the adverb. This is most clearly seen on ready examples liberally offered by English texts of every stylistic standing:

The pale moon looked at me from above .

By now Sophie must have received the letter and very soon we shall hear from her.

The departure of the delegation is planned for later this week.

The freely converted adverbial substantives in prepositional collocations belong to one of the idiomatic characteristics of English, and may be likened, with due alteration of details, to partially substantivised adjectives of the adjectivid type. On this analogy the adverbial substantives in question may be called "adverbids".

Furthermore, there are in English some other peculiar structural types of adverbs which are derivationally connected with the words of non-adverbial lexemic classes by conversion. Conversion consist in making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged [17, 118]. To adverbs coined by conversion belong both adverbs of full notional value and adverbs of half-notional value.

A peculiar set of converted notional adverbs is formed by adjective-stem conversives, such as fast, late, hard, high, close, loud, tight, etc. The peculiar feature of these adverbs consists in the fact that practically all of them have a parallel form in -ly, the two component units of each pair often differentiated in meaning or connotation: to work hard — hardly to work at all; to fall flat into the water — to refuse flatly; to speak loud — to criticise loudly; to fly high over the lake — to raise a highly theoretical question.

Among the adjective-stem converted adverbs there are a few words with the non-specific -ly originally in-built in the adjective (daily, weekly, lively, timely):

Invoices are signed on a daily basis. (adjective)

The machines are inspected twice daily. (adverb)

The purely positional nature of the conversion in question, i.e. its having no support in any differentiated categorial paradigms, can be reflected by the term "fluctuant conversives" which is proposed to use as the name of such formations.

As for the fluctuant conversives of weakened pronominal semantics, very characteristic of English are the adverbs that positionally interchange with prepositions and conjunctive words (before, after, round, within): never before — never before our meeting; somewhere round — round the corner; not to be found within — within a minute.

Among the various types of adverbs, those formed from adjectives by means of the suffix -ly not only occupy the most representative place but also pose a special problem.

The problem is introduced by the very regularity of their derivation, the rule of which can be formulated quite simply: each qualitative adjective has a parallel adverb in –ly: silent — silently, slow — slowly, tolerable — tolerably, pious — piously, sufficient — sufficiently, tired — tiredly, explosive — explosively, etc.

This regularity of formation accompanied by the general qualitative character of semantics gave cause to A. I. Smirnitsky to advance the view that both sets of words belong to the same part of speech, the qualitative adverbs in -ly being in fact adjectives of specific combinability.

The strong point of the adjectival interpretation of qualitative adverbs in -ly is the demonstration of the actual similarity between the two lexemic sets in their broader evaluative function, which fact provides for the near-identity of the adjectival and adverbial grammatical categories of comparison. On the whole, however, the theory in question is hardly acceptable for the mere reason that derivative relations in general are not at all relations of lexico-grammatical identity; for that matter, they are rather relations of non-identity, since they actually constitute a system of production of one type of lexical units from another type of lexical units. As for the types of units belonging to the same or different lexemic classes, this is a question of their actual status in the system of lexicon, i. e. in the lexemic paradigm of nomination reflecting the fundamental correlations between the lexemic sets of language. Since the English lexicon does distinguish adjectives and adverbs; since adjectives are substantive-qualifying words in distinction to adverbs, which are non-substantive qualifying words; since, finally, adverbs in -ly do preserve this fundamental nonsubstantive-qualification character — there can't be any question of their being "adjectives" in any rationally conceivable way. As for the regularity or irregularity of derivation, it is absolutely irrelevant to the identification of their class-lexemic nature.

Thus, the whole problem is not a problem of part-of-speech identity; it is a problem of inter-class connections, in particular, of inter-class systemic division of functions, and, certainly, of the correlative status of the compared units in the lexical paradigm of nomination.

But worthy of attention is the relation of the adverbs in question to adverbs of other types and varieties, i. e. their intra-class correlations. As a matter of fact, the derivational features of other adverbs, in sharp contrast to the ly-adverbs, are devoid of uniformity to such an extent that practically all of them fall into a multitude of minor non-productive derivational groups. Besides, the bulk of notional qualitative adverbs of other than ly-derivation have ly-correlatives (both of similar and dissimilar meanings and connotations). These facts cannot but show that adverbs in -ly should be looked upon as the standard type of the English adverb as a whole.

1.3 Syntactic functions and positional characteristics of the adverb

Adverbs may perform different functions, modifying different types of words, phrases, sentences. Some adverbs are restricted in their combinability whereas others may modify different words, for instance enough, which may be used in to work enough, not quickly enough, quick enough. The most typical function of the adverb is that of adverbial modifier.

Adverbs may function as adverbial modifiers of manner, place, time, degree to a finite or non-finite form of the verb:

He started his career in St Petersburg - or Leningrad as it then was.

(time)

The south should remain dry, but everywhere else will have heavy rain. (place)

Adam obviously adored his wife. (manner)

I rather suspect we’re making a mistake. (degree)

Some adverbs of time though synonymous, are used in different syntactic patterns. Thus, already is used in affirmative sentences, and yet - in interrogative and negative sentences:

Tim has already come back from his trip.

I haven’t finished my report yet.

Have you finished yet?

However, already may occur in interrogative and negative sentences when there is an element of surprise or the question is suggestive, that is the speaker expects an affirmative answer:

Have they finished already?

Adverbs may function as adverbial modifiers to an adjective or another adverb. Usually the modifying adverb is an intensifier (very, rather, awfully, so, terribly, extremely, most, utterly, unusually, delightfully, unbelievably, amazingly, strikingly, highly, that, etc.) The same applies to composite adverbs, such as (kind of, sort of, a good bit of, a lot of, a hell of, a great deal of, etc.):

It is terribly important for parents to be consistent.

This new program is unbelievably good.

It made me feel kind of awkward.

Some adverbs - still, yet, far, much, any combine with comparative adjectives (much worse, not any better, still greater, etc.)

Adverbs of degree can modify certain kinds of prepositional phrases:

They lived nearly on the top of the hill.

His remarks were not quite to the point.

Comparative adverbs are used in clauses of proportional agreement, that is, parallel clauses in which qualities or actions denoted in them increase or decrease at an equal rate:

The longer I think about it the less I understand your reasons.

To express the idea that a quality or action decreases or increases at an even rate the comparative may be repeated, the two identical forms being connected by and:

He cried louder and louder.

There are some adverbs which may modify nouns or words of nominal character, functioning as attribute, as in: the way ahead, the trip abroad, the journey home, his return home, the sentence above (below), the day before. A few adverbs can premodify nouns without losing their adverbial character: the then president, in after years, the above sentence, the now generation.

As adverbs modify words of different classes, they accordingly occupy different positions in the sentence. In comparison with other words, adverbs may be considered as the most movable words. However, adverbs are not identical in their ability to be moved to another position in the structure. There are generally four possible positions for adverbs in the sentence:

1)  at the head of the sentence;

2)  between the subject and predicate or, if the predicate is a complicated form, the adverb appears after the first auxiliary verb, link-verb or a modal verb;

3)  before the word the adverb modifies;

4)  at the end of the sentence.

Different semantic groups of adverbs tend to appear in different positions. Thus, many adverbs of time and frequency prefer Position 2:

A good strong cup of coffee is just what I need right now.

He is always in time for meals.

They sometimes stay up all night.

However, some of time adverbs appear in Position 4:

He came eventually.

The telephone rang, and he answered it immediately.

She hasn’t finished her breakfast yet.

If any adverbs of time and frequency are found in positions other than those characteristic of them, it means that these adverbs are intended for special emphasis:

They usually are very punctual. (common)

Usually they are very punctual. (emphatic)

Adverbs of place and direction usually occur in Position 4:

I looked for it everywhere.

The young people were enjoying themselves outside.

Adverbs of manner commonly appear in Position 4, after the predicate verb:

He gave her the money reluctantly.

She looked at me suspiciously.

Some adverbs of manner may occasionally be found in Position 2:

She carefully picked up all the bits of broken glass.