Abstract
While adjectives and their potential universality have been much debated, adverbs remain rather neglected in the typological and cognitive literature. From a typological perspective, adjectives can be dealt with using a comparative concept: rather than assuming from the outset the existence of a class of adjectives, a particular language-independent definition of adjectives is used as a heuristic for examining recurrent form-meaning combinations. In the present article, adverb is addressed as a comparative concept in the same vein: an adverb is a lexeme that denotes a descriptive property and can be used to narrow the predication of a verb. This comparative concept is applied to a sample of 41 languages from the whole world. The results show that although there are diverse structural possibilities in terms of different adverbial constructions of varying spread and productivity, simple adverbs are found in a considerable number of unrelated languages, even in some cases where adjectives cannot be found. Clear adverb subtypes reminiscent of semantic types of adjectives further emerge, leading to a discussion of whether the comparative concepts in this case allow us to uncover a substantial cross-linguistic prototype.
Notes
1 The notions prototype and prototypical are here used in the sense of Rosch (Citation1978).
2 Part of speech labels are capitalized throughout the article when referring to language-specific categories (such as the English Adjective), but not elsewhere.
3 It should be noted that our interpretation of the term reference here is restricted to the discourse function as defined by Croft (Citation1991, 2001, 2003).
4 Dixon (Citation2004, 5) also proposed a third set, consisting of semantic types in large adjective classes, but being on the marginal side of prototypical adjectives, they will not be discussed here.
5 The 41 languages are: Sango (Atlantic-Congo) (Samarin Citation1967), Swahili (Atlantic-Congo) (M. Thanssoula, p.c.), Lango (Nilotic) (Noonan Citation1992), Nama (Khoe-Kwadi) (Hagman Citation1977), Maltese (Afro-Asiatic) (Borg and Azzopardi-Alexander Citation1997), Dutch (Indo-European) (Donaldson Citation1997), Lithuanian (Indo-European) (Ambrazas Citation1997), Basque (Isolate) (Hualde and de Urbina Citation2003), Georgian (Kartvelian) (Hewitt Citation1995), Kham (Sino-Tibetan) (Watters Citation2002), Marathi (Indo-European) (Dhongde and Wali Citation2009), Turkish (Turkic) (Kerslake and Göksel Citation2005), Abkhaz (Abkhaz-Adyge) (Hewitt Citation1979), Lezgian (Nakh-Daghestanian) (Haspelmath Citation1993), Tsakhur (Nakh-Daghestanian) (Schulze Citation1997), Ainu (Isolate) (Tamura Citation2000), Lahu (Sino-Tibetan) (Matisoff Citation1973, Citation2003), Kiowa (Kiowa-Tanoan) (Watkins Citation1984), Yimas (Lower-Sepik Ramu) (Foley Citation1991), Abau (Sepik) (Lock Citation2011), Alamblak (Sepik) (Bruce Citation1984), Bukiyip (Nuclear Toricelli) (Conrad and Wogiga Citation1991), Imonda (Border) (Seiler Citation1985), Bininj Gun-Wok (Gunwinyguan) (Evans Citation2003), Mian (Nuclear Trans New Guinean) (Fedden Citation2011), Kewa (Nuclear Trans New Guinean) (Franklin Citation1971), Kambera (Austronesian) (Klamer Citation1998), Kilivila (Austronesian) (Senft Citation1986), Paamese (Austronesian) (Crowley Citation1987, Citation2002), Tagalog (Austronesian) (Schachter Citation1972; Himmelmann Citation2005), Koasati (Muskogean) (Kimball Citation1991), Slave (Athapaskan) (Rice Citation1989), Ojibwa/Nishnaabemwin (Algic) (Valentine Citation2001), Lakota (Siouan) (Boas and Deloria Citation1941; Van Valin Citation1977), Cherokee (Iroquian) (Montgomery-Anderson Citation2008, Pulte and Feeling Citation1975), Yakima Sahaptin (Sahaptian) (Jansen Citation2010), Tariana (Arawakan) (Aikhenvald Citation2003), Bora (Boran) (Thiesen Citation1996; Thiesen and Weber Citation2012), Mam (Mayan) (England Citation1983), Mapudungun (Auracanian) (Smeets Citation2008), Waiwai (Cariban) (Hawkins Citation1998).
6 As commented by a reviewer, this example does not illustrate a clear adjectival use of gehppa: it is not clear that it narrows the reference of a noun. After extensive searching, this is still the only in-context example that I can find for Kham, which is why it is kept, even though its value in this context can be questioned. Still, Watters treats the items discussed as Adjectives, an analysis which I follow in this article. However, the fact that these items can only questionably be classified as Adjectives does not go against my main point, which is that Kham has (a few) Adverbs.
7 Glosses follow the Leipzig Glossing Rules, with the additions of aor = aorist, cnj = conjunction, emp = emphatic, exc = exclamation, tag = question tag. For Mian: n2 = neuter 2. For Swahili: 7 = class marker 7, 9 = class marker 9, 11 = class marker 11.
8 Kambera does not allow monosyllabic roots as independent prosodic words, which is why in (7)b a default consonant /ŋ/ is attached to the root together with /u/, to avoid a closed syllable, which is not allowed in Kambera (Klamer Citation1998, 284). In (7)a, where the clitic = nya already is attached to the Verb, adding ngu is not necessary to form a prosodic word. In (7)c below, the full form pingu is used even though a clitic is attached, as ya could not form a prosodic word with the root pi.
9 As commented by a reviewer, this could potentially also be a resultative usage of sioní “bad,” comparable to e.g., beat someone blue and green.
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