SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to define the processes involved in the formation of Adverbials which have the morphological shape adj+ly, in terms of the theory of Transformational Grammar and starting with the assumptions about syntax contained in Chomsky's "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax" (1965). This thesis is therefore fundamentally descriptive in its aim and attempts to provide analyses for the traditional de-adjectival Adverbials, that is for Manner and Degree and Sentence Adverbials, These are found to be considerably more varied in their syntactic origins that has generally been supposed. It has also been necessary to relate to de-adjectival Adverbials other structures e.g. with + N.P. and like -N.P., which carry out identical functional roles. Some of the conclusions arrived at have implications not only for the analysis of particular structures but also for the nature of the "Model" set up to define natural language. The thesis starts with a consideration of prevalent assumptions concerning the analysis of these Adverbials, One of the central notions of current theory, here termed "The Doctrine of the Unique Source", is that which attempts to explicate the relationship between alternative surface forms of Manner and Degree Adverbials by hypothesising a single Deep Structure category from which they all arise. This "Doctrine" is intimately linked with theoretical assumptions about the nature of Interrogatives and the definition of syntactic function. Since the conclusion is here reached that the "Unique Source" is a mistaken hypothesis some of the support for these related theories is removed. Finally, a further theoretical implication of this study is that the "Aspects" Model is inadequate for defining a relationship between categories that is required for the expression of a process common to all de-adjectival Adverbials, In fact it provides further empirical evidence that the notion "A qualifies B" must be directly definable.