Pure Manner Adverbs revisited

Abstract

Ernst (1984) notes that most Quality Adverbs have two readings, one of which is a VP reading, the other one a clausal reading. However, within this group there are also adverbs such as loudly, woodenly etc., which only allow for the VP reading, the so called Pure Manner Adverbs. While Ernst holds that these adverbs form a class because of their limitation to one reading, he cannot explain why adverbs with two readings, such as quietly, graciously do not belong to this class, although their VP readings have the same semantics as the PMA.I propose to drop the ‘one-reading’ criterion in favour of a semantic characterization of PMA. The revised class of PMA will include adverbs with two readings, where the VP reading servers as the the primary reading and the clausal reading results from a metaphorical usage of the adverb. A template for deriving these readings is introduced, using the underspecified event semantic approach of Do¨ lling (2000). At the end of the paper, I discuss how constraints at the level of Do¨ lling’s PFS can be used in making the semantic derivation system sensitive to the syntactic influence on the preferred readings.