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Proteus: Adverbial multi-word expressions in Italian and their cognate counterparts in –mente

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Adverbs and Adverbials
This chapter is in the book Adverbs and Adverbials

Abstract

This contribution focuses on Italian adverbs ending in -mente (e.g. lussuosamente ‘luxuriously’) with an analytic counterpart (a multi-word expression, MWE) which is etymologically related and capable of equally performing the adverbial function (e.g. di lusso). Two sentences diverging only in this regard have the same truth values and they entail each other. Morphologically, such adverbial MWEs are formed by a preposition which is followed by a noun/ adjective sharing the content morpheme of the -mente adverb. However, in some contexts the cognate -mente adverb cannot replace its MWE. For instance, only MWE can be used as predicate in copular constructions (La festa e di lusso, ‘the party is lavish’). For this research, more than a hundred pairs have been collected and classified. In this lexicographic enterprise, syntax happens to play a central role: one of the groups in the taxonomy (e.g. vigliaccamente/da vigliacco, ‘like a coward’), has a revelatory property: the noun/adjective in the adverbial MWE inflects in gender and number. This suggests that these adverbial MWEs are predicates. It is argued that, due to the above-mentioned entailment relationships, -mente adverbs, even if invariable, function as predicates as well, and with identical argument structures. This leads to a reassessment of the joint role of syntax and suffixation in the lexical and grammatical construction of some semantic properties of adverbs and adverbials, leaving in the background traditional parts-of-speech distinctions.

Abstract

This contribution focuses on Italian adverbs ending in -mente (e.g. lussuosamente ‘luxuriously’) with an analytic counterpart (a multi-word expression, MWE) which is etymologically related and capable of equally performing the adverbial function (e.g. di lusso). Two sentences diverging only in this regard have the same truth values and they entail each other. Morphologically, such adverbial MWEs are formed by a preposition which is followed by a noun/ adjective sharing the content morpheme of the -mente adverb. However, in some contexts the cognate -mente adverb cannot replace its MWE. For instance, only MWE can be used as predicate in copular constructions (La festa e di lusso, ‘the party is lavish’). For this research, more than a hundred pairs have been collected and classified. In this lexicographic enterprise, syntax happens to play a central role: one of the groups in the taxonomy (e.g. vigliaccamente/da vigliacco, ‘like a coward’), has a revelatory property: the noun/adjective in the adverbial MWE inflects in gender and number. This suggests that these adverbial MWEs are predicates. It is argued that, due to the above-mentioned entailment relationships, -mente adverbs, even if invariable, function as predicates as well, and with identical argument structures. This leads to a reassessment of the joint role of syntax and suffixation in the lexical and grammatical construction of some semantic properties of adverbs and adverbials, leaving in the background traditional parts-of-speech distinctions.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. List of abbreviations VII
  4. Introduction – Adverbs and adverbials: Categorial issues 1
  5. I Delimitational approaches
  6. 1 Consistency of the class
  7. The incoherence of the English adverb class 29
  8. The subcategorization of English adverbs: A feature-based clustering approach 55
  9. 2 Margins of the class
  10. Proteus: Adverbial multi-word expressions in Italian and their cognate counterparts in –mente 85
  11. Prenominal adverbs in German? The cases of auf and zu 109
  12. II Classificational approaches
  13. 3 Adverbial scope: beyond the low / high dichotomy
  14. ‘Sentence adverbs’ don’t exist! 135
  15. Formal and functional features of modal adverbs in French and Modern Greek 167
  16. Different types of subject-oriented adverbials in French and in Mandarin Chinese: A contrastive study 195
  17. 4 The case of domain adverb(ial)s
  18. Domain adverbials and morphology: The rivalry between -mäßig and -technisch in German 227
  19. Framing, segmenting, indexing: Towards a functional account of Romance domain adverbs in written texts 249
  20. List of contributors 277
  21. Index 279
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110767971-004

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. List of abbreviations VII
  4. Introduction – Adverbs and adverbials: Categorial issues 1
  5. I Delimitational approaches
  6. 1 Consistency of the class
  7. The incoherence of the English adverb class 29
  8. The subcategorization of English adverbs: A feature-based clustering approach 55
  9. 2 Margins of the class
  10. Proteus: Adverbial multi-word expressions in Italian and their cognate counterparts in –mente 85
  11. Prenominal adverbs in German? The cases of auf and zu 109
  12. II Classificational approaches
  13. 3 Adverbial scope: beyond the low / high dichotomy
  14. ‘Sentence adverbs’ don’t exist! 135
  15. Formal and functional features of modal adverbs in French and Modern Greek 167
  16. Different types of subject-oriented adverbials in French and in Mandarin Chinese: A contrastive study 195
  17. 4 The case of domain adverb(ial)s
  18. Domain adverbials and morphology: The rivalry between -mäßig and -technisch in German 227
  19. Framing, segmenting, indexing: Towards a functional account of Romance domain adverbs in written texts 249
  20. List of contributors 277
  21. Index 279
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