On the inner structure of manner-adverbial expressions: from a mono-lingual perspective to a comparative-linguistic perspective

This chapter discusses the inner structure of superficially different manner-adverbial patterns in Dutch, with a special focus on the surface pattern A+P, as in hardop (loud-up; ‘aloud’). In the spirit of the generative linguistic quest for cross-constructional symmetry, it is proposed that these adverbial patterns are all manifestations of one and the same abstract, underlying syntactic configuration, namely the Extended Adpositional Phrase (XPP). After this in-depth, single-language study of manner adverbials, the chapter continues with a more global, cross-linguistic perspective on the inner structure of manner adverbials, starting from the hypothesis that, at a more abstract level, the adverbial patterns attested cross-linguistically all have an adpositional design. Finally, the chapter briefly discusses the relationship between inner structure and outer behavior (i.e., distribution) of manner adverbial expressions. Specifically, the question is addressed to what extent “being prepositional” or “being postpositional” matters for the distributional behavior of manner adverbials. More in general, this chapter aims to provide another illustration of the fruitful interaction between in-depth investigation of individual languages, and the comparative-linguistic study of a larger sample of languages.