Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2017, Qupperneq 86

summary
‘Adverb placement in Icelandic and Faroese’
Keywords: word order, central sentence adverbs, adjunction, functional projections,
Insular Scandinavian
This paper discusses the relative order of certain classes of central sentence adverbs in
Icelandic and Faroese, in particular speech act adverbs vs. evidential adverbs as in the
Faroese examples in (1), and conjunctive adverbs vs. evaluative adverbs as in the Faroese
examples in (2). The relative order of the logical subject and central sentence adverbs in
double subject constructions as in (3) (still Faroese) is also taken under consideration (see
discussions of such orders in Icelandic in Jónsson 2002).
(1) a. Jón hevur satt at siga týðiliga gjørt eitt mistak. (speech act > evidential)
John has honestly obviously made a mistake
b. Jón hevur týðiliga satt at siga gjørt eitt mistak. (evidential > speech act)
John has obviously honestly made a mistake
(2)a. Hanus var tó tíbetur sloppin óskaddur. (conjunctive > evaluative)
Hanus was though fortunately escaped unhurt
b. Hanus var tíbetur tó sloppin óskaddur. (evaluative > conjunctive)
Hanus was fortunately though escaped unhurt
(3)a. Tað hava tíbetur nógv lisið bókina. (evaluative > log. subject)
EXPL have fortunately many read book-the
b. Tað hava nógv tíbetur lisið bókina. (log. subject > evaluative)
expl have many fortunately read book-the
The questionnaire data presented in this paper shows that the relative orders of adverbs
that follow Cinque’s (1999) hierarchy receive more positive judgments than the orders that
do not exhibit the predicted patterns in both languages. Thus, examples like (1a) and (2a)
are preferred over the corresponding examples in (1b) and (2b), but the contrasts are not
always as striking as one might expect. Examples of three adverbs within the same clause
get rather negative judgments in general, but in case such orders are acceptable the judg-
ments are also in accordance with Cinque’s (1999) hierarchy. In double subject construc-
tions (3), however, the sentence adverbs usually must precede the logical subject in Faroese
while in Icelandic both orders are fine for most speakers. This is conistent with recent
research showing that adverb placement is somewhat less free in Faroese than in Icelandic
(see Angantýsson 2016 and references cited there).
Ásgrímur Angantýsson
Háskóla Íslands
Stakkahlíð
IS-105, Reykjavík
asgriman@hi.i
Ásgrímur Angantýsson86