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The purpose of this dissertation is to map the valency structure of a subset of the French adverbs.
More specifically, the dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: What valency structure
follows from the lexical content of the adverbs investigated? What is the nature of the semantic
relation established? What is the status of the valents relative to the adverb and relative to other
valents? The empirical object of investigation is focused on adverbs derived from adjectives which
take prepositional phrases headed by the preposition à as their complement.
In addition, the delimitation chosen for this dissertation is a class of adverbs which share the feature
that they carry the suffix -ment, which developed from the Latin noun mens, meaning
“spirit/thought/mood/tenor”. It is argued that the fusion of an adverb and mens establishes the
general meaning [in an adjective spirit/thought/mood/tenor], i.e. the adverb retains the general
quality denoted by the adjective, but the meaning targets the verb situation (at clause level) or the
quality (at phrasal level) which saturates the argument of the adverb. Following tradition, the
analysis adopted here, takes the verb situation to be realised by the predicate, and the quality to be
realised by an adjective phrase, which may be realised by a past participle or, in rare cases, by
another adverb. Since the valent is required by the lexical content of the adverb, it is assumed,
following Herslund and Sørensen, that the valent is a fundamental valent.
Another important feature of the adverbs which are analysed in this dissertation is that they
establish a relation between two entities. This means that in addition to its fundamental valent, the
adverb takes a further valent which it links with the fundamental valent. This second valent is
referred to as the second valent of the adverb. The two valents are analysed as two relata in a
relation.
Unlike the fundamental valent, the second valent is always at phrasal level. When the adverb
functions at clausal level, the second valent is realised as the prepositional object of the preposition
phrase headed by à. This realisation is, however, not possible when the adverb functions at phrasal
level. It is argued that this is a consequence of the fact that it is impossible to insert other
constituents between the adverb and the adjective, adverb or participle which is modified by the adverb. The result is that where the second valent is realised, the adverb moves from preposition to
postposition relative to its fundamental valent. In the data investigated the second valent denotes
very different entities such as situations denoted by verbs and qualities, but also objects and abstract
entities.
The individual adverbs which are investigated here each determine their valency. In general there
are different sources that allow us to uncover the core meaning of a word. The sources chosen in
this dissertation are: the semantic roles assigned by the adverbs, their symmetry, elements of shared
semantics or partial synonymy, their morphology and etymological roots. In order to bring together
these different sources, the dissertation postulates a denotation design for each adverb. The
etymology of the adverbs has been a particularly helpful in determining the relation and valency
they establish. In addition to adverb and adjective suffixes, the majority of the adverbs investigated
have a preposition in their synchronic morphological make-up which denotes a relation between
two entities: some adverbs contain both a preposition and a morpheme from another word class, e.g.
comparativement and subséquemment, while others contain only a preposition, e.g. antérieurement
and postérieurement. A very small subset does not contain a preposition, but only a single adverb
morpheme which denotes the relation in question, so, for instance, the adjectives par and similis,
which have formed pareillement and semblablement, denote a relation between two relata. From an
etymological perspective, a few adverbs, such as latéralement, do not denote a relation – so it is
only through the formal realisation of the preposition phrase that the relation is established.
The dissertation maps the etymological and morphological structure of the adverb and the range of
functions that the adverb and its valents can have at clausal and phrasal level. The function of the
adverb is relevant to the extent that the function affects its semantics and its valency structure. The
effect of function is seen in some adverbs when they operate on clausal or on phrasal level and in
other adverbs when they modify entire clauses or just the verb. |
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