A Descriptive and Theoretical Study on Positions of Adverbs and Their Semantic Interpretation

本研究的目的是基于生成语法的前人研究，特别是生成语法的原则和参数方法，考察并试图回答以下问题：(I)副词或附加词在短语或句子的层次结构中处于什么位置？(Ii)副词或附加词在NP移位方面的表现如何？WH-移位和LF-移位？(Iii)如何在句子中给予副词或副词适当的语义解释？三年的研究表明，英语副词和副词的特点是：(1)意义模糊、功能多样的副词可以通过与其在句子中共存的成分来消除歧义；这种歧义消解涉及单个副词的功能可能性、副词出现的整个句子的意义，以及副词的性质与副词所伴随的其他成分之间的兼容性。(Ii)副词在句子中的位置及其在句子中的句法或层次地位对消除多用副词的歧义起着重要作用，对句子副词和谓词副词的分类也有重要意义。(Iii)虽然大多数副词都是句子中的可选成分，但它们与句子中的其他成分存在共现限制；这些共现限制不仅对赋予副词恰当的语义解释具有重要意义，而且还可以推广为副词的许可条件，说明某些副词不能用于某些句子，但可以用于其他句子。

The purpose of this research is to examine the following problems and to try to answer them based on the previous studies in generative grammar, especially, principles-and-parameters approach of generative grammar :(i) what position are the adverbs or adjuncts given in the phrase or hierarchical structure of sentences?(ii) how do adverbs or adjuncts behave with respect to NP-movement, Wh-movement and LF-movement?(iii) how can adverbs or adjuncts be given proper semantic interpretation in sentences?The research during three years have shown the properties of English adverbs and adjuncts as follows :(i) The adverbs which are ambiguous in meaning with multiple uses of functions can be disambiguated by the elements which cooccur with them in sentences ; what can be involved with this kind of disambiguation are functional possibilities of individual adverbs, the meaning of the whole sentence in which an adverb appears, and the compatibility between the properties of adverbs and those of other elements which adverbs cooccur with.(ii) The positions in which adverbs occur in sentences and their syntactic or hierarchical status in sentences play an important role in disambiguating the ambiguity of multiple-use adverbs, and they are also significant for classifying sentence adverbs and predicate adverbs.(iii) While most of adverbs are used as optional elements in sentences, they have cooccurrence restrictions with other elements in sentences ; these cooccurrence restrictions are not only of great importance for assigning proper semantic interpretations to adverbs but they can also be generalized into licensing conditions of adverbs which explain that certain adverbs cannot be used in some sentences but they can in other sentences.