From Manner to Subject Modification: Adverbialization in English

Abstract

The paper discusses the process of adverbialization in English, focusing on one type of adverb, subject-modifier adverbs such as sadly, thoughtfully and pinkly. It is also shown that the -ly suffix in English (unlike its cognates in the other Germanic languages) has become an extremely versatile adverb suffix. Finally, it is argued that in English, the manner adverb category is prototypical, whereas other adverb types, notably subject-modifier adverbs, are less central adverbs.

Manner and adverb: Fuzzy categorial boundaries in collocations

“…Ernst 2002, Ravid, Shlesinger 2000, Swan 1997, Virtanen 2008. At a closer look, however, manner adverbs prove to be a rather heterogeneous and open group, and in Estonian, there exists a fair number of nouns attracted to this class.…”

Secondary grammaticalization and the English adverbial -ly suffix

“…11 It should be noted that some scholars distinguish between adverbs such as those in (6) and (7) The category of subject adjuncts has increased in frequency, not only in absolute terms, but also compared to the corresponding adjectives (cf. Swan 1990Swan , 1997Swan , 1998Killie 1993 In more recent times, English has developed a new subset of subject adjuncts, viz. the category of 'appearance/attribute adverbs' (Swan 1990(Swan , 1997(Swan , 1999Killie 2000bKillie , 2007.…”

“…Swan 1990Swan , 1997Swan , 1998Killie 1993 In more recent times, English has developed a new subset of subject adjuncts, viz. the category of 'appearance/attribute adverbs' (Swan 1990(Swan , 1997(Swan , 1999Killie 2000bKillie , 2007.…”

“…The spread of the adverbial -ly suffix has been termed 'adverbialization' (Nevalainen 1994a(Nevalainen : 243-244, 1997Swan 1997Swan : 187-193, 1998 ' (1994a: 243). The increased use of -ly adverbs as manner adverbs, by contrast, involves no categorial shift, but is the result of a 'morphological regularization process' which has taken place within the manner category (Nevalainen 1994a: 243-244).…”

Derivational Versus Phrasal Adverbials of Manner

“…(adverbial of manner PP) Languages derive their adverbs in different ways allowing for a classification as proposed in Swan (1988Swan ( , 1997 and Protopopescu (2012: 77). This classification triggers a clear split within the Romance family, where French, Italian and Spanish pattern along the lines of English as adverbial languages, with rich and productive adverbial suffixes, while Romanian has evolved more towards a partly adverbial language, similar in a way to German which uses the same form for both adjective and adverb.…”