Call for Papers

Bordeaux, 29.-30. April 2021

Maison des Sciences de l'Homme d'Aquitaine

Université Bordeaux Montaigne

It has become a commonplace to say that adverbs represent a major challenge for any theory of word classes in German (see Pittner et al. 2015 and Geuder 2019). Among the most plausible candidates for this status, we find lexical items that are morphologically and functionally so diverse that the very unity of the class is cast into doubt : oft, sofort, nachts, gestern, hier, vergebens, schrittweise, glücklicherweise, jedenfalls etc. Research on German adverbs had to resort to heterogeneous criteria mixing elements from several levels of analysis (Rauh 2015, Geuder 2019).

At the morphosyntactic level, only two features appear to be generally acceptable : the lack of flexion and the ability to fill the first slot of a declarative clause (Vorfeld). Yet, not all connective adverbs and particles can really occur in this slot (on the syntax of connective adverbs, see Pasch, Brauße, Breindl & Waßner 2003). In spite of this, several authors regard these items, especially particles, as deficient adverbs or weak adverbs(Cardinaletti 2011). This raises further questions on the borders of the class, not only in German, but also in a comparative perspective. It should also be taken into consideration that many German adverbs go back to processes of lexicalization and/or reanalysis. For instance, nachts, jedenfalls and all adverbs ending with -erweise are heirs to genitive NPs (see also Romance -ment[e] or English -ly, which also involve the reanalysis of NPs). Can we link the presumptive emergence of a lexical class of adverbs in German and the downfall of adverbial genitives? What are the lexicalization and grammaticalization features of German adverbial morphology and adverbial suffixes (-erweise, -mäßig)? Can we identify formal and/or functional regularities, either at a language-specific or at a cross-linguistic level?

Functional-syntactic criteria quickly meet their limits, as well. Even though Dionysius Thrax insisted upon adverbs being modifiers of verbs (hence the name épirrhêma), it is well-known that they can not only modify a verb or a VP (rechts biegen, schrittweise nach vorne kommen), but also be part of an NP (die Treppe links) or specify an adjective (oft erfolglos). Even within the VP, several scope classes have to be distinguished (see De Cesare, Albom, Cimmino & Spagnolo 2018 for a classification attempt from a Romance and contrastive viewpoint). On the one hand, adverbs such as gerade, weiterhin or noch (and adverb/adjectives like eben or weiter) participate in the marking of aspect and Aktionsart, raising the question of their incipient grammaticalization. On the other hand, even the classical distinction between (low) manner adverbs and (high) sentence adverbs could be hard to maintain. For instance, the adverb gerne can be used both as a low and as a high adverbial (er kommt immer gerne zu Besuch vs er kann gerne kommen!): more precise tests and functional criteria are needed here, too.

Sentence adverbs do not form a unified class, either: they can exhibit different scopes, different functions and occupy different syntactic positions. For instance, evaluative adverbs (leider, glücklicherweise) presuppose the content of the utterance and should neither be confused with epistemic modal adverbs (so-called Modalwörter), nor with conjuncts or with metalinguistic adverbs and adverbial periphrases. Functional hierarchies ought to be established, as proposed by Cinque (1999) in a cross-linguistic cartographic framework, or by Nølke (1993, about French) on a functional base.

Within the core VP, adverbs are often associated either with manner, or with circumstances. But among adverbs of time and place, some seem to be able to enjoy the status of core arguments to the verb (ich wohne hier), so that it becomes necessary to question the distinction between arguments and adjuncts frequently underlying the notion of circumstantial adverbial. Conversely, circumstantials can also play a text- or discourse-structuring role as framesetting topics, in which case they should be located at a higher functional level than “normal” circumstances (Charolles 1997; s. also De Cesare, Albom, Cimmino & Spagnolo 2019).

Information-structural perspectives, both formal and functional, are often requested in order to thoroughly examine the behaviour of adverbs and adverbials in some positions, especially in the Vorfeld (but the left-middle field of the clause, i.e. the immediate position after the finite verb of an autonomous verbal clause, is also critical, s. Frey & Pittner 1998). The same holds for the “Nacherstposition”, the facultative slot between the first position and the finite verb of declarative clauses, which is restricted to a small subset of adverbs (Breindl 2008). Finally when it comes to information structure, at least some focus-sensitive particles can also occur alone in the preverbal position, thus fulfilling the syntactic requirements for being regarded as full adverbs, even though their usual behaviour shows very strong peculiarities which should make them apart.

The syntactic diversity of German adverbs is at least partly linked to the heterogeneity of “adverbial functions”. In German, theses functions can also be fulfilled by nominal phrases, prepositional phrases, conjunctional phrases (“adverbial clauses”) but also adjectives resp. adjectival phrases. This makes the functional definition of adverbs even more complex, especially when it comes to the adjective / adverb interface: some adjectives have access to at least some “adverbial functions” without any derivative suffix. How “rigid” vs “flexible” (Hengeveld & Valstar 2010) is German with regard to the adjective / adverb distinction? Do adverbial adjectives really have access to the same functions as derivated forms like adverbs ending with -erweise? What about adverbial NPs (letztes Jahr…) in contrast to similar prepositional phrases (im letzten Jahr)? Is there any kind of relation between morphology and semantic resp. syntactic function? Should we draw consequences from this for our categorial definitions of adverbs and adverbials?

The aim of the conference is to discuss these issues, crossing language-specific, descriptive and theoretical research and drawing on inputs from all theoretical backgrounds, from cross-linguistic research. Methodological, epistemological and historical contributions are welcome, as well. Among the problems to be addressed are:

• The status of adverbs in linguistic theories of parts-of-speech in German

• The respective relevance of functional and formal criteria and their combination

• Taxonomies and hierarchies within adverbs and adverbials; how sustainable are notions like “manner adverbs” or “sentence adverbs”?

• Adverbs vs adjectives; adverbs vs. adverbial NPs; adverbs and particles

• Lexicalization and grammaticalization in the history of German adverbs

• Adverbs in dependence grammars

• Adverbs and adverbials from an information-structural perspective

Proposals should be be sent by September 1^st, 2020. They should not exceed 5,000 characters (incl. empty spaces but excluding references). The talks will last 30 minutes, incl. 10 minutes of discussion, and will be held either in German or in English.

Contact e-mail:

pierre-yves.modicom [a] u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr 

adverb2021 [a] sciencesconf.org

References

Breindl, Eva. 2008. Die  Brigitte  nun  kann  der  Hans  nicht  ausstehen.  Gebundene  Topiks  im Deutschen. Breindl, Eva & Maria Thurmair (eds.), Erkenntnisse vom Rande. Zur Interaktion  von  Prosodie, Informationsstruktur,  Syntax  und  Bedeutung.  Zugleich  Festschrift  für Hans Altmann zum 65. Geburtstag. (= special issue Deutsche Sprache 1/08), 27-49.

Cardinaletti, Anna. 2011. German and Italian modal particles and clause structure. The Linguistic Review 28. 493-531.

Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford / New York: OUP.

Charolles, Michel. 1997. L'encadrement du discours: Univers, champs, domaines et espaces. Cahiers de  Recherche Linguistique LANDISCO 6. 1-73.  

De Cesare, Anna-Maria, Ana Albom, Doriana Cimmino & Marta Lupica Spagnolo (eds.) 2018. Formal and functional perspectives on sentence adverbials in the Romance languages and beyond. Linguistik Online 92, 5 (special issue).

De Cesare, Anna-Maria, Ana Albom, Doriana Cimmino & Marta Lupica Spagnolo. 2019. Domain adverbials in the news: A corpus-based contrastive study of English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Languages in Contrast 20, 1. 31-57.

Frey, Werner & Karin Pittner. 1998. Zur Positionierung der Adverbiale im deutschen Mittelfeld. Linguistische Berichte 176. 489-534.

Geuder, Wilhelm. 2019. Eine Art Wortart: Das Adverb im Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 38, 2. 191-242.

Nølke, Henning. 1993. Le regard du locuteur. Paris: Kimé.

Hengeveld, Kees & Marieke Valstar. 2010. Parts-of-speech systems and lexical subclasses. Linguistics in Amsterdam 3(1). 2-25.

Pasch, Renate, Ursula Brauße, Eva Breindl, Ulrich Hermann Waßner. 2003. Handbuch der deutschen Konnektoren 1: Linguistische Grundlagen der Beschreibung und syntaktische Merkmale der deutschen Satzverknüpfer (Konjunktionen, Satzadverbien und Partikeln). Berlin: De Gruyter.

Pittner, Karin, Daniela Elsner & Fabian Barteld (eds.). 2015. Adverbs: functional and diachronic aspects. Amsterdam: John Benjamins