Филологические науки/3. Теоретические и методологические проблемы исследования языка.

Serbenyuk K.

Chernivtsi National University

SEMANTIC CLASSES OF –LY ADVERBS COMBINED WITH ADJECTIVES IN THE AUTHOR’S DISCOURSE

The given paper is concerned with adverb-adjective combinations from a perspective of use and their frequency in the author’s discourse. Most discussions of adverb-adjective combinations have particularly dealt with their intensifying characteristics (e.g. Bäcklund, 1973) and little on other semantic features (e.g. Quirk et al., 1985: 445; Sinclair et al., 1990: 93-97). Our objective is to analyze texts in order to define semantic classes of adverbs which combine with adjectives in the author’s discourse and to delineate their peculiarities and frequency in the discourse.

The aim of the present article is to study adverb-adjective combinations in the texts corpus and to classify adverbs according to their semantics in the author’s discourse.

The object of the research is adverb-adjective combinations (105 combinations) retrieved from the texts with the help of continuous sampling.

Material of the investigation served the discourse of Jodi Picoult: “The Tenth Circle” and “Vanishing Acts”.

Following Quirk et al. [5], Johansson [2, p. 40-45) and other authors we classify adverb-adjective combinations into [1] degree and extent, [2] emphasis, [3] manner, [4] time, [5] space, [6] viewpoint and respect, [7] evaluation of truth, [8] basic and typical qualities, [9] value judgment, and [10] quality and state. Some of these will be described as we analyze our corpora, because some classes of adverbs were not identified in the discourse.

Frequency analysis of the use of adverb-adjective combinations gave us the following numerical data from the author’s discourse (Table 1).

Table 1.

Frequency of Adverb-Adjective Combinations according to Johansson’s classification.

	[1]	[2]	[3]	[4]	[5]	[6]	[7]	[8]	[9]	[10]
	degree and extent	emphasis	manner	time	space	viewpoint and respect	evaluation of truth	basic qualities	value judgement	quality and state	Total
Text	44	16	19	0	0	3	11	6	0	6	105

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Taking a look at each individual category of the above classification, adverbs of degree and extent [1] are most abundant in the English language, as well as in the corpora we have analyzed. It should be noted, however, that in our corpus it amounts to 36.81% of the total. Using Quirk et al.’s [5, p.445, 589-591] terms, in this category we have found adverbs called amplifiers, that ‘scale upwards from an assumed norm,’ with samples from our corpora, such as ‘highly contagious,’ ‘increasingly difficult’ ‘highly charged’; and also downtoners, which ‘have a generally lowering effect,’ as in ‘scarcely distinguishable’.

Besides these ‘amplifiers’ and ‘downtoners’, which are based on the semantic force of the adverb, we can also perceive in our corpora a similar force from the adjective being modified, with a definite upgrading or lowering effect. Take, for instance, amplifiers such as ‘particularly sappy’, ‘relatively narrow’ or ‘relatively safer’, and downtoners, as in ‘infinitely smaller’. The majority of combinations, however, could be termed ‘neutral’, since they neither upgrade nor diminish the meaning of the expression. For instance, ‘equally impossible’, ‘equally sure’, ‘particularly religious’, ‘relatively new’.

In the category of emphasis [2] is where the greatest difference can be found. Having analyzed the discourse we came across the following combinations – ‘truly dangerous’, ‘truly glad’ and including the following triple adverb to modify the adjective enough, as in ‘clearly, slowly, and loudly enough’. The following examples are easily recognized: ‘really soft’, ‘really important’, ‘perfectly normal’, ‘perfectly honest’, etc. The effect of some of them on the sentence, however, is similar to that of degree expressions [5, p. 447], as in the case of the above-mentioned sample, ‘perfectly honest’.

The notion of manner [3] is found normally in adverbials alone, but it is also found in the type of combinations under study. Their interpretation is more difficult, because they can often be taken as combinations of degree [1]. On the one hand, in our corpus, we find combinations like ‘wholly professional’, clearly expressing notions of manner [3], but also adverb-adjective combinations which are not so clearly distinguishable: for instance ‘considerably less’ could also be understood as belonging to the degree category [1]. On the other hand, the more rhetorical nature of literary discourse will favor a more consistent use of these adverb-adjective combinations, as in ‘humanly possible’. Also ‘deeply loved’, ‘deeply rooted’, ‘deeply upset’, although in the last two examples we could also speak of bordering tautology because of the way in which they were ‘troubled’ or how ‘deeply’ he was ‘upset.’ In most cases, however, many submodifiers can be used with qualitative adjectives, with which their meaning is intensified – Sinclair et al. [6, p.93] give, among other examples, ‘deeply religious’ and ‘heavily dependent.’ Thus, the classification of many of these combinations may often be affected by the submodifying function of the adverb.

The so-called ‘viewpoint and respect’ category [6], next to degree [1], appear to be less frequent in our research, with 4 instances in the discourse. As noted by Quirk et al. [5, p.438], these type of adverbs derive most commonly from adjectives by the addition of the suffix –ly, adverbs which act as premodifiers of adjectives in terms of viewpoint [5, p.448]. This makes them more clearly distinguishable than the rest of categories.

In this category of ‘viewpoint and respect,’ Quirk et al. [5, p.448] include combinations derived from adverbs, such as ‘economically,’ ‘ethically,’ or ‘technically’; Johansson [2, p. 43], in turn, includes combinations such as ‘commercially unrealistic,’ ‘economically disastrous,’ ‘emotionally offensive,’ which are most commonly found in English texts. Our corpora is no exception in this respect but examples of such matrices are fewer: ‘statistically significant’ – in other words, X is ‘significant’ from the point of view of statistics. Another example retrieved from our corpus is ‘ethically higher’.

The use of disjuncts referring to truth statements, also called ‘evaluation of truth’ [7], at first thought would seem to be a common occurrence, but not so much in literary texts. We outlined such combinations in our corpus as ‘probably asleep,’ ‘probably significant’, ‘simply nonhuman,’ ‘simply impossible’.

Some adverbs are used to stress the qualities considered ‘basic or typical’ [8] of the noun clause they refer to. It may often happen, however, that some of them, rather than qualities, point to degree of truth, and thus – as Johansson [2, p.44] remarks – they are concerned with “some kind of evaluation.” Adverbs like ‘basically’ or ‘essentially’ will often form combinations that can be classified under category [8] or [7]. In our corpus we found combinations such as ‘basically sound’, ‘especially critical’ in reference to ‘knowledge,’ and ‘criticism’

The last category discerned in our corpus is ‘quality and state’ [10], another difficult category to classify, since most adverbs that may qualify could also fit under manner [3], but most likely they should be interpreted as interfering with the domain of adjectives. Both qualities and states are fundamentally expressed by adjectives. In other words, the combination ‘gravely compassionate’ could perfectly be taken as ‘grave and compassionate’, and ‘calmly reasonable’ as ‘calm and reasonable.’ In our corpus we have found samples like ‘deeply entrenched,’ ‘wonderfully lucky,’ which have been initially included in the category of ‘manner’ [3], could perfectly been classified as ‘quality and state’ [10].

In our corpus we outlined the following semantic classes of ly- adverbs combined with adjectives in the author’s discourse: degree and extent, emphasis, manner, viewpoint and respect, evaluation of truth, basic qualities, and quality and state. Such semantic types of –ly adverbs as time, space, and value judgment were not identified in our corpus. It can be explained by discourse register as we analyzed literary discourse of Jodi Picoult. We may conclude that adverb-adjective combinations are quite frequent in the author’s discourse but some classes of combinations prevail, for example degree and extent (44 combinations), manner (19 combinations), and emphasis (16 combinations). The number of the other classes of –ly adverb-adjective combinations is not so sufficient in the author’s discourse. The use of the given combinations is understood as being basically a tool in the hands of the writer to express – ‘submodify’ something more than what the bare adjective indicates in a given sentence.

References

1. Bäcklund U. The Collocation of Adverbs of Degree in English / Bäcklund U. – Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1973. – 128 p.

2. Johansson S. «Sweetly oblivious»: Some aspects of adverb-adjective combinations in present-day English / Johansson S. // Data, Description, Discourse. Papers on the English Language in Honour of John McH Sinclair. – London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. – Pp.39-49.

3. Picoult J. The Tenth Circle / Picoult J. – N.Y.: Atria Books, 2006. – 272 p.

4. Picoult J. Vanishing Acts. - retrieved from [WWW Document] http://www.esnips.com/web/eb00ks

5. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language / Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G. and Svartvik J. – London: Longman, 1985. – 1779 p.

6. Sinclair J. et al. Collins COBUILD English Grammar / Sinclair J. et al. – London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990. – 783 p.