Дипломная работа: Syntagmatic and paradigmatic peculiarities of adverbs in English

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 [38]. (adjective)

The water was rising very fast [38]. (adverb)

It is hard to believe that she’s only nine [40]. (adjective)

He was still breathing hard after his run [40]. (adverb)

Formations of the type from outside, till now, before then, etc. cannot be included in the word-building sets of adverbs [13, 223]. 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 [13, 223].

By now Sophie must have received the letter and very soon we shall hear from her [13, 223].

The departure of the delegation is planned for later this week [41].

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" [13, 223].

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 [13, 223]. 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 [38]. (adjective)

The machines are inspected twice daily [38]. (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" [13] 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 [13, 226]: 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 [9, 174-175].

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 [13, 227]. 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 [13, 228].

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 [7]. 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 [13, 229].

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 [8].

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 [41].

(time)

The south should remain dry, buteverywhere else will have heavy rain.

[41]. (place)