On some aspectual adverbs – in Brazilian Portuguese and in Chilean Spanish – that seem ambiguous
We turn to Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and Chilean Spanish (CS) in our study of some aspectual adverbs which, according to Cinque (1999, 2004), have a dual source both concerning their position in the universal hierarchy of adverbs and their scope. The main goal of this paper is to review som...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3
2025-06-01
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| Series: | ELAD-SILDA |
| Online Access: | https://publications-prairial.fr/elad-silda/index.php?id=1731 |
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| Summary: | We turn to Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and Chilean Spanish (CS) in our study of some aspectual adverbs which, according to Cinque (1999, 2004), have a dual source both concerning their position in the universal hierarchy of adverbs and their scope. The main goal of this paper is to review some cases of apparent ambiguity as featured by the following classes of “duplicating” adverbs in BP and CS: AspRepetitive(I) and AspRepetitive(II), AspFrequentative(I) and AspFrequentative(II), AspCelerative(I) and AspCelerative(II), AspInceptive(I) and AspInceptive(II), and AspSgCompletive(I) and AspSgCompletive(II). We intend to argue that, on Syntactic Cartography grounds, this ambiguity is much more apparent than real. We turn to a set of seven syntactic tests which can help one: (i) determine the position of “ambiguous” adverbs – those indicated by the indexes I and II in Cinque’s (1999) hierarchy – and (ii) distinguish their different semantic contents. These seven diagnostic tools are: 1) the morphological nature of the adverb; 2) the position of the adverb/adverbial relative to the main finite V(erb); 3) recovery of an adverb in a VP ellipsis construction; 4) the position and scope of the adverb(ial) in a structure with an Infinitival Subject Clause + a Small Clause; 5) the appearance of an adverb within an interrogative clause; 6) the scope of a “focusing” adverb; and 7) precedence-and-transitivity tests featuring an Asp(I) and an Asp(II) adverb. The tests applied help one (i) discriminate between the two scopal positions for adverbs in clausal structure and (ii) argue against the alleged ambiguity featured by the five classes of duplicating aspectual adverbs just mentioned. |
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| ISSN: | 2609-6609 |