• Dutch1
  • Frisian
  • Saterfrisian
  • Afrikaans
Show all
8.3.Categorial types of adverbial modifiers
quickinfo

It is generally recognized that adverbial phrases can be of various categorial types. They can be adjectival, prepositional, nominal, and may also take the form of a clause. We illustrate this in (136) by means of temporal adverbial phrases.

136
a. Jan gaat erg vroeg weg.
adjective phrase
  Jan goes  very early  away
  'Jan is leaving quite early.'
b. Jan gaat voor zonsopgang weg.
prepositional phrase
  Jan goes  before sunrise  away
  'Jan is leaving before sunrise.'
c. Jan gaat volgende week weg.
noun phrase
  Jan goes  next week  away
  'Jan is leaving next week.'
d. Jan gaat weg voordat de zon op komt.
clause
  Jan goes  away  before  the sun  up  comes
  'Jan is leaving before the sun rises.'

It is not the case, however, that all semantic types of adverbials can be realized in all four forms, and this section discusses the restrictions that we find. We start, however, by explaining why we do not distinguish a separate category of adverbs. After that, Sections 8.3.2 and 8.3.3 will deal with the constraints on the categorial realization of, respectively, VP and clause adverbials.

References:
    report errorprintcite