Adverbs and Logical Form: A Linguistically Realistic Theory

Abstract

'Ad-Verbs' modify (i.e. 'change') verbs. Adverbs internal to a VP are Ad-Verbs modifying the verb that heads that VP. VP-external adverbs may be interpreted as Ad-Verbs only with respect to some higher verb (e.g. an auxiliary or a 'verb' in the translation into an interpreted logic). Basic Ad-Sentences also. exist; but neither they nor Ad-Verbs are adequately translated as functional operators applying to independently evaluated arguments. Adverbs typically translate into expressions like variable-binding operators which introduce the 'variables' which they 'bind'. Adverbs signal re-evaluation of the expressions on which they operate, helping to 'build' logical form.* How are adverbs to be represented in 'logical form' (LF)? By this I mean: How are natural-language adverbials to be translated into a logic or formal language capable of expressing those features of natural-language meaning that are structurally determined? Traditionally, both linguists and philosophers have assumed that the inventory of expression-types in LF is just that provided by classical predicate logics: variables and constants denoting individuals, n-place constant predicates denoting n-place relations among individuals, quantifiers that operate on sentential expressions to 'bind' variables in the operands (i.e. in the sentences with which they combine), and truth-functional connectives. Such simple systems, however, provide no expressions corresponding directly to adverbs.