Adverbs, PPs and Clausal modifiers(173) a the letter 1 might [VP eventually [VP t 1 arrive]]
b Peter 2 might [vP suddenly [vP t 2 punch 1 -v [VP Paul t 1 ]]]
c water 2 is [vP steadily [vP pour 1 -ing [VP t 2 t 1 out of the bath]]]
d Betty 2 has [vP annoyingly [vP beat 1 -en [vP t 2 t 1 [VP me t 1 again]]]]
In (173a), given that there is no light verb with an unaccusative verb, the adverb must
be adjoined to the VP. In (173b) the adverb is adjoined to a vP headed by an agentive
light verb and in (173c) and (d) it is adjoined to a vP headed by aspectual morphemes.
Thus there seems to be no limit in principle on what the adverb can adjoin to. In each
of these cases however, the adverb is adjoined to a higher position than the verb moves
to. When there is no light verb, as in (173a), the verb is not forced to move out of the
VP and in this case the adverb can adjoin to the VP. If the verb moves out of the VP,
however, the adverb cannot adjoin to it. Indeed, anything that the verb moves out of is
out of bounds for an adjunction site for the adverb. This suggests that the adverb
interacts with the movement of the verb and it is this interaction that determines the
possible adjunction sites for the adverb. Specifically, it seems that the verb never
moves over the top of the adverb. Hence, we may assume that in principle an adverb
can adjoin to any part of the extended VP, including any light verb projection, as long
as the verb remains lower than it at S-structure and does not move over its adjunction
position. There are a number of ways in which we might attempt to account for this
fact, but at present we will be satisfied at leaving it as a descriptive generalisation.
Another observation that can be made from the data in (170) is that adverbs may
appear behind all verbal elements. There are a number of possible ways to capture this
fact. One is to assume that adjunction is free from ordering restrictions. Indeed it does
seem that different adjuncts can come on different sides of whatever they modify: the
PP modifier, as we shall see, typically follows the verbal complex. Thus, adjunction in
general is not restricted to a particular side as are complements and specifiers. Adverbs
therefore may simply take advantage of this freedom and be adjoined either to the left
or the right of the VP. The alternative would be to have adverbs generated on one side
of the VP and then achieve the other position via a movement. Jackendoff (1977), for
example, argued for this position on the basis of the similarity between adverbs and
adjectives. Recall that in chapter 1 we analysed adverbs and adjectives as belonging to
the same general category, so one might expect grammatical principles to apply to
both in a similar way. Jackendoff’s observation was that adjectives typically precede
the nouns that they modify:
(174) a stupid fool fool stupid
b heavy book book heavy
c precocious child *child precocious
If we assume therefore that the basic position of the adjective is before the noun
that it modifies, we might take this to indicate that the basic position of the adverb is
before the verb that it modifies and therefore that its post-verbal position is a derived
one. We are not really in much of a position to be able to evaluate either of these
positions and therefore we will leave the matter unresolved.