Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T23:12:26.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The morphology of -ly and the categorial status of ‘adverbs’ in English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2012

HEINZ J. GIEGERICH*
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, Scotland, UKHeinz.Giegerich@ed.ac.uk

Abstract

I argue in this article that adverb-forming -ly, unlike its adjective-forming counterpart, is an inflectional suffix, that therefore adverbs containing -ly are inflected adjectives and that, consequently, adverbs not containing -ly are uninflected adjectives. I demonstrate that in English, the traditional category Adverb is morphologically non-distinct from the category Adjective in that it has no morphology of its own but instead shares all relevant aspects of the morphology of adjectives. I demonstrate moreover that such an analysis explains various aspects of morphological and phonological behaviour on the part of adverbial -ly which differ from the behaviour of adjectival -ly and/or from the behaviour of derivational suffixes. And I argue that contrary to a recent claim, the syntactic behaviour of adverbs presents no obstacle to the single-category analysis of adjectives and adverbs warranted by the morphology.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This article is at least in part a response to Payne, Huddleston & Pullum (2010). Indeed, it probably owes its very existence to conversations with my departmental colleague Geoff Pullum, whose disagreement I gratefully and cheerfully acknowledge. Heike Baeskow, Nik Gisborne, Tracy Hall, S. J. Hannahs, Donka Minkova, Ingo Plag, Hans-Jörg Schmid, Greg Stump and two anonymous reviewers have also provided helpful comments and suggestions.

References

Baker, Mark C. 2003. Lexical categories: Verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. 2008. Dvandva. Word Structure 1, 120.Google Scholar
Booij, Geert. 1996. Inherent versus contextual inflection and the split morphology hypothesis. Yearbook of Morphology 1995, 1–16.Google Scholar
Booij, Geert. 1999. The role of the prosodic word in phonotactic generalizations. In Hall, & Kleinhenz, (eds.), 47–72.Google Scholar
Bouchard, Denis. 2002. Adjectives, number and interfaces: Why languages vary. Amsterdam and London: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan. 1985. Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cetnarowska, Božena. 2001. On inherent inflection feeding derivation in Polish. Yearbook of Morphology 1999. 153–80.Google Scholar
Sciullo, Di, Anna-Maria, & Williams, Edwin. 1987. On the definition of word. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Emonds, Joseph E. 1976. A transformational approach to English syntax. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fabb, Nigel. 1988. English suffixation is constrained only by selectional restrictions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6, 527–39.Google Scholar
Ferris, Connor. 1993. The meaning of syntax: A study in the adjectives of English. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Giegerich, Heinz J. 1999. Lexical strata in English: Morphological causes, phonological effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Giegerich, Heinz J. 2005. Associative adjectives in English and the lexicon–syntax interface. Journal of Linguistics 41, 571–91.Google Scholar
Giegerich, Heinz J. 2008. Compounding and lexicalism. In Lieber, & Štekauer, (eds.), 178–200.Google Scholar
Hall, T. Alan 1999. The phonological word: a review. In Hall, & Kleinhenz, (eds.), 1–22.Google Scholar
Hall, T. Alan & Kleinhenz, Ursula (eds.). 1999. Studies on the phonological word. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hansen, Barbara, Hansen, Klaus, Neubert, Albrecht & Schentke, Manfred. 1990. Englische Lexikologie. 3rd edn.Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopädie.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer & Plag, Ingo. 2004. What constrains possible suffix combinations? On the interaction of grammatical and processing restrictions in derivational morphology. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 22, 565—96.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1958. A course in modern linguistics. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffreyet al. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1997. The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, Paul. 1982. Lexical morphology and phonology. In Linguistic Society of Korea (eds.), 3–91.Google Scholar
Koshiishi, Tetsuya. 2011. Collateral adjectives in English and related topics. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Leitzke, Eva. 1989. (De)nominale Adjektive im heutigen Englisch: Untersuchungen zur Morphologie, Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik von Adjektiv-Nomen-Kombinationen der Typen atomic energy und criminal lawyer. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Levi, Judith. 1978. The syntax and semantics of complex nominals. New York and London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lieber, Rochelle & Štekauer, Pavol (eds.). 2008. The Oxford handbook of compounding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
of Korea, Linguistic Society (eds.). 1982. Linguistics in the morning calm: Selected papers from SICOL-1981. Seoul: Hanshin.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1966. Towards a ‘notional’ theory of the ‘parts of speech’. Journal of Linguistics 2, 209–36.Google Scholar
Marchand, Hans. 1969. The categories and types of present-day English word-formation: A synchronic-diachronic approach. 2nd edn.Munich: C. H. Beck.Google Scholar
Menn, Lise & MacWhinney, Brian J.. 1984. The repeated morph constraint: toward an explanation. Language 19, 519–41.Google Scholar
Payne, John, Huddleston, Rodney & Geoffrey, K. Pullum. 2010. The distribution and category status of adjectives and adverbs. Word Structure 3, 3181.Google Scholar
Plag, Ingo. 2003. Word-formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pounder, Amanda. 2001. Adverb-marking in English and German: System and standardization. Diachronica 18, 301–58.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. & Huddleston, Rodney. 2002a. Adjectives and adverbs. In Huddleston, & Pullum, et al. 2002, 525–96.Google Scholar
Pullum, Geoffrey K. & Huddleston, Rodney. 2002b. Prepositions and preposition phrases. In Huddleston, & Pullum, et al. 2002, 597–661.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, James. 1995. The generative lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Radford, Andrew. 1988. Transformational grammar: A first course. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rainer, Franz. 1996. Inflection inside derivation: Evidence from Spanish and Portuguese. Yearbook of Morphology 1995. 83–92.Google Scholar
Richardson, John F., Marks, Mitchell & Chukerman, Amy (eds.). 1983. Papers from the parasession on the interplay of phonology, morphology, and syntax, vol. 19. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2011. English morphology and word-formation: An introduction. Berlin: Erich Schmidt.Google Scholar
Stephany, Ursula. 1982. Inflectional and derivational morphology: A linguistic continuum. Glossologia 1, 2755.Google Scholar
Sugioka, Yoko & Lehr, Rachel. 1983. Adverbial -ly as an inflectional affix. In Richardson, Marks & Chukerman, (eds.), 293–300.Google Scholar
Warren, Beatrice. 1984. Classifying adjectives. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
Wiese, Richard. 1996. The phonology of German. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. 1989. Quicker, more quickly, *quicklier. Yearbook of Morphology 1988, 139–73.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold. 1995. Why English adverbial -ly is not inflectional. Papers from the 31st regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, vol. 31 part 1, 523–5.Google Scholar