Lecture 8: Adverbial positions

 ‘Adverbial’ is the cover term for everything which modifies some part of the clause (VP, IP or CP)  It does not name a syntactic category, but a function  ‘Adverb’ is a syntactic category which often has the function of an adverbial  Phrases of different categories can be adverbials  AP: he was [almost certainly] mad  PP: he pressed the button [just in time]  NP: I paid the bill [the day after]  CP: I would be famous [if I could sing]

 Modifiers are adjuncts  An adjunct has the same mother as sister  So, they are recursive  Generally, adjuncts can come either side of what they are adjoined to  Adjunction is possible to any level of projection

 Adverbials have a range of possible positions  He may have been being robbed possibly  However, there is variation between different adverbials

 Adverbials of different categories have different distributions  APs have the widest distribution and can appear  Sentence initiallycertainly he left  Sentence medially he certainly left  Sentence finallyhe left certainly

 PPs, DPs and clauses only appear initially and finally  In the morning he lefthe left in the morning  that night he lefthe left that night  Because he could, he lefthe left because he could  They appear sentence medially only with special intonation  He, in the morning, left  He, last night, left  He, because he could, left  In this case, they seem to have the status of an ‘after thought’: an epenthetic comment

 AP adverbials also have different distributions depending on how they are used  He unexpectedly quickly fled the room  He fled the room quickly unexpectedly  * he quickly unexpectedly fled the room  * he fled the room unexpectedly quickly  Adverbs like ‘quickly’ have to be closer to the verb than adverbs like ‘unexpectedly’  We call the first VP adverbs and the others sentential adverbs

 Some adverbs with specific meanings have limited distributions  Negatives only appear medially  (*never) he (never) spoke to me (*never)  Negative polarity adverbs have to appear to the left of a negative  * he ever spoke  He didn’t ever speakno one ever spoke  He didn’t speak everno one spoke ever  * ever, he didn’t speak* ever no one spoke

 Modify the manner in which an event happens  He suddenly arrived  He carefully picked up the stack of plates  Contrast the following:  He obviously has no money (sentence modification)  It is obvious that he has no money  He dressed very obviously (VP modification)  He was dressed in an obvious way

 Modify the place in which an event happens  They met in the park

 VP adverbials adjoin to VP  So we can have more than one:  They met [secretly] [in the park]  In any order:  They met [in the park] [secretly]

 Sentential adverbials are adjoined higher than the VP  So VP adverbials are closer to the verb than sentential adverbials:  He clearly hastily left his apartment  * he hastily clearly left his apartment  The wrong order involves crossing branches

 The same is true for the final positions

 Support for this analysis  He may hastily leave the office  * he hastily may leave the office

 But:  He hastily left the office  The verb is assumed to be in the I position  So the adverbial cannot be adjoined to VP

 The verb is not in I  This means that the inflection must move to the verb  But downward movements are impossible elsewhere

 The verb is in I and the adverbial is not adjoined to VP  So why can’t it be in this position when an auxiliary is in I?

 The VP adverb clearly prefers a post-inflection position:  You should quietly leave the room  * you quietly should leave the room  But with special emphasis on the Inflection, it is sometimes not so bad to have the adverb in front of it  They have carefully read the contract  ? They carefully HAVE read the contract

 Adverbs do not like being after the verb, though they can appear after the whole VP:  * he read carefully the contract  He read the contract carefully  This is a little like the negation:  The negative particle cannot be in front of I  * He not will leave  Nor after the verb  * He will leave not

 The difference between VP adverbs and the negative is that the conditions on the adverb are less strong:  The adverb doesn’t like being in front of I, but it can be  Thus, when the main verb is in I, while the negative CANNOT precede or follow it, the adverb CAN precede it

1. The inflection needs supporting  * he –ed leave 2. The verb should move to support it  * he do-ed (did) leave 3. Negation cannot be in front of I  * He not will leave 4. VP adverbs cannot be in front of I  * it suddenly could collapse 5. Negation cannot be behind the verb  * he will leave not 6. VP adverbs cannot be behind the verb  * he left suddenly the cinema  With negation:  1, 2, 3 and 5 are relevant  1 and 2 require the verb and the inflection to be together  3 and 5 require them to be separate  The solution is to violate 2 and insert do  With adverbs:  1, 2, 4, and 6 are relevant  1 and 2 require the verb and inflection to be together  4 and 6 require them to be separate  The solution is to violate 5 and put the adverb first  What we have here is a set of grammatical requirements that conflict with each other:

 These conditions are ordered in terms of importance:  Neg precedes I > verb supports I > Adv precedes I  When conflicts arise, where not all conditions can be satisfied, we violate the least important one

 PP modifiers always follow the VP  Therefore their positioning is relatively straightforward

 PP adverbials which modify the VP can follow sentential adverbials  He opened the box yesterday with care  As we know, PPs can undergo extraposition and so can move to the end of the clause

 * he opened the box t 1 yesterday carefully 1

 VP adverbials can also go before the whole clause  Gently, he took the fuse from the bomb  In anger, he responded to the letter  This is a position that things other than adverbials can go in:  That idea, we all agreed was bad  His attitude, I couldn’t tolerate  We will deal with this in a future lecture

 Semantics  Far more varied than VP adverbials  Subject oriented adverbials  He foolishly forgot to pay  Speaker oriented adverbials  Honestly, he’s an idiot  Temporal modifiers  I met him last week  Modal Adverbials  He probably forgot to pay  Negative adverbials  He never remembers my birthday  Purpose modifiers  to avoid arrest, he paid the bill  Reason modifiers  Because he is fast, he won  Conditionals  You can leave, if you must

 The distribution of sentential adverbials is dependent on the type involved  Subject oriented adverbials have to precede the VP  Foolishly, he read the papersubject oriented  He foolishly read the papersubject oriented  He read the paper foolishlymanner  Speaker oriented adverbials can go in all positions, but can only be final with special intonation:  Hopefully, he will succeed  He will hopefully succeed  He will succeed, hopefully(epenthetic?)

 Negative adverbs always have a medial position  * never, he will surrender  He will never surrender  * he will surrender never  However, they can undergo ‘negative fronting’, which is accompanied by inversion  Never will he surrender  We will look at this structure in a future lecture

 Clausal adverbials, like PPs, prefer a peripheral position:  If we had any eggs, we could have eggs and bacon if we had any bacon  They can be medial, as epenthesis:  We could, if we had the inclination, have a party

 Sentence medial position is preferably following the inflection:  They will certainly hire a lawyer  Though a pre-inflection position is possible with special emphasis – better than VP adverbs in this position  They certainly will hire a lawyer

 The pre-inflection position must be adjoined to the I’  it is between the subject (specifier of IP) and the inflection

 The post inflection adverb cannot be adjoined to the VP  Sentential adverbs precede VP adverbs, which are adjoined to VP  So they must be adjoined to something between the inflection and the VP  We have seen that tense heads a vP which sits in the relevant position

 Evidence in favour of this:  He will obviously have been being followed  He will have obviously been being followed  He will have been obviously being followed  When it sits after the last one, its interpretation is that of a manner adverb (adjoined to VP)  He will have been being obviously followed

 Last week we concluded that the negative particle is best analysed as an adverbial  We can be more precise now  It is a sentential adverbial  Because it has a medial position, it is probably best analysed as an AP  Though it doesn’t have many other AP properties  * very not  Therefore, it adjoins to vP  He will (not) be (not) being (not) followed

 Some temporal adverbials have a more restricted medial position than others:  He is often busy  He may often be busy  ? He may be often being nosey  This may be because such adverbs prefer to be adjoined to the tense vP rather than any other

 Adverbials are adjuncts  VP adverbials (mainly) adjoin to the VP  Sentential adverbials (mainly) adjoin to vP  There are some linear restrictions on them  APs can come either side of what they are adjoined to, but other adverbials follow  Adverbials can only follow the VP, not the verb  Adverbials prefer a post inflection position  All adverbials can appear in front of the clause (except negatives) – this is a movement process which is not restricted to adverbials