Adverb formation and modification: English, German and Dutch adverbial morphology in contrast
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Janneke Diepeveen
Abstract
In this paper I propose a framework for a contrastive investigation of English, German and Dutch adverbial suffixes. According to the morphological literature, these three genetically related languages have an inventory of suffixes for the creation of adverbs. However, only English has a systematic process of adverb formation (namely, with the suffix -ly) whereas German and Dutch lack such regularity. Any attempt at investigating German and Dutch adverbs and adverb formation more closely has to deal with problematic formal class distinctions. In this paper I aim to show that a function-based approach sheds new light on the notion of adverbial morphology and that the traditional conception of “adverbial suffixes” as morphemes for adverb formation may need to be fine-tuned. As such, a contrastive study of English, German and Dutch adverbial morphology from a functional perspective can contribute to a greater understanding of the more general issue of the demarcation of a class of adverbs.
© School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland, 2011
Articles in the same Issue
- Special issue on contrastive word-formation: Editors’ preface
- Contrastive word-formation today: Retrospect and prospect
- Aspect indicators for deverbal nominals on different syntactic levels
- Adverb formation and modification: English, German and Dutch adverbial morphology in contrast
- On English and German resultative and causative-resultative derived verbs
- Intensifying affixes across Italian and English
- Negation and lexical morphology across languages: Insights from a trilingual translation corpus
- Contrastive word-formation and lexicography: Compound verbs in English and Bulgarian
- Coordinate compounding in English and Spanish
- The similarities and differences of four neglected lexical categories: English [VerN]N and [VingN]N, and French [NVveur]N and [NVant]N units
- English–French contrasts in word-formation. Morphological patterns and stylistic effects
Articles in the same Issue
- Special issue on contrastive word-formation: Editors’ preface
- Contrastive word-formation today: Retrospect and prospect
- Aspect indicators for deverbal nominals on different syntactic levels
- Adverb formation and modification: English, German and Dutch adverbial morphology in contrast
- On English and German resultative and causative-resultative derived verbs
- Intensifying affixes across Italian and English
- Negation and lexical morphology across languages: Insights from a trilingual translation corpus
- Contrastive word-formation and lexicography: Compound verbs in English and Bulgarian
- Coordinate compounding in English and Spanish
- The similarities and differences of four neglected lexical categories: English [VerN]N and [VingN]N, and French [NVveur]N and [NVant]N units
- English–French contrasts in word-formation. Morphological patterns and stylistic effects
