Adverbs Across Domains

Book excerpt: This text identifies grammatical constraints on adverbs in multiple areas of language, from morpho-syntax to prosody to semantics. A novel syntactic adverb hierarchy is proposed to explain the distribution of multi-adverb constructions, one which has just five distinct classes. The status of “adverb” as a unique lexical category is also investigated. Readers will learn that, unlike adjectives, adverb ordering restrictions are not predictable based on a single conceptual factor like subjectivity. This book also connects the ordering preferences of adverbs to the meaning and usage of each class of adverbs, as well speaker variation relating to adverb form and pronunciation. Although the book focuses primarily on data from the English language, its findings are predicted to hold cross-linguistically, and would be useful to any linguistic researcher studying adverb distribution.