Adverbs and the Syntax-semantics Interplay

Recent literature on the placement and interpretation of adverbs has tried to explain crosslinguistic fixed hierarchies on the order of adverbs on the basis of strict syntactic hierarchies (e.g. Cinque 1999). The aim of this talk is to show that, in order to understand the distribution of adverbs, one must take into account information coming from different domains: their (non)inherent semantics, their prosodic structure and their categorial status. Once all these variables are taken into account, one can predict the position of adverbs. These considerations will be compared to strict hierarchical approaches to adverb placement. The second part of the talk will be dedicated to show that a less rigid approach to adverb syntax may predict that the same lexical item may acquire distinct meanings and approaches. Special attention will be drawn to adverbs that may function as VP-domain adverbs and as connective adverbs.