Above and below verbal roots: A case study of English adverbs of results

Abstract

This study investigates English resultative adverbs focusing on their syntactic peculiarities. Based on the observation that resultative adverbs can appear in certain activity verb phrases, we argue for an elaborate verbal structure. In particular, we propose that two distinct syntactic heads need to be postulated for resultative adverbial modification (Res(ult)) and for encoding the aspectual information of the verb (v). The proposal correctly predicts the distributional contrasts between resultative and manner adverbs, the patterns of adverbs ambivalent in denoting manner and result meanings, and the possibilities of modification of verb and adjective derivatives. The analysis of resultative adverbs advanced in this study is shown to newly account for measure adverbs. In doing so, we demonstrate that certain roots can head-adjoin either to Res or v with the corollary that the resulting verb can either denote a result or manner. Finally, an implication of this study is discussed regarding the relationship between result roots and the Res head.