Cartography (linguistics)
In linguistics, cartography is the observation that adverbial phrases, i.e. words like "probably", "regularly", or "unfortunately", appear in a sentence in a fixed order and not in any order. This is given by the fact that these words are not adjuncts, as is actually usually assumed, but the specifiers of functional heads.
With the adverbial phrases, a distinction is made between the "real" and the "minor". The latter follow the complements in the verb phrase and specify, among other things: place (at school, at work, ...), time (yesterday, at two o'clock, ...), company (with friends, ...), reason (to win, ...) etc. These cannot be arranged in the order and actually have no restrictions in terms of word order.
The chronological order
The observed order of the adverbial phrases or their functional heads is the following:
- Speech act ( mode ) ("Frankly, ...")
- Evaluative (mode) (unfortunately, fortunately, ...)
- Evidentiality (mode) (allegedly, ...)
- Epistimic (mode) (probably, ...)
- Past ( tense ) (once, then, ...)
- Future (tense) (afterwards, then, ...)
- Irrealis (mode) (possibly, ...)
- Necessity (mode) (inevitable, ...)
- Possibility (mode) (possibly, ...)
- Habitual aspect (usually, ...)
- Intent (mode) (intentionally, accidentally, ...)
- Anterior (tense) (already, ...)
- Terminative aspect (no more, ...)
- Continuative aspect (still, ...)
- Retrospective aspect (straight, ...)
- Proximal aspect (soon, soon, ...)
- Durative aspect (short, ...)
- Progressive aspect (typically, ...)
- Prospective aspect (almost, ...)
- Rating (good, bad, ...)
- Celerative aspect (fast, early, ...)
- Complete aspect (complete, ...)
- Repetitive aspect (again, ...)
- Frequentative aspect (often, ...)
- Verb phrase
Evidence of the word order
Due to their acceptability judgments, the following sentences provide evidence for the relative order of two adverbial classes. Due to the transitivity, one can thus assume a sequence. Italic sentences were rated unacceptable by native speakers. The sentences are examples for further possible acceptability judgments, which is why not every sequence has an example.
Evaluative mode and possibility
- She says that unfortunately Peter may have left.
- She says that unfortunately Peter may have left.
Intention and Anterior
- She says that Peter is already driving the car on purpose.
- She says that Peter is already driving the car on purpose.
Terminative and repetitive
- She says that Peter doesn't drink often anymore.
- She says that Peter often stops drinking.
Evidence of the functional minds
An alternative to the thesis that adverbial phrases are specifiers of functional heads would be to say that adverbial phrases are adjuncts that can freely adjoint to the TP to the left or right. Consider now the following (acceptable) Italian sentences:
- Gianni saggiamente ha accettato. (G. has wisely accepted)
- Gianni ha fortunamente accettato. (Fortunately, G. accepted)
Then under this assumption one should be able to adjoint saggiamente as well as fortunamente to the finite verb ha , as in the examples above:
- Gianni saggiamente ha fortunamente accettato. (Fortunately, G. has wisely accepted)
This sentence is seen as ungrammatic, which speaks against the adjunct thesis. This deficit could be remedied by adding the condition that "fortunamente" must come before "saggiamente". Assuming functional heads that are always present in the same order, this is already given.
Evidence for Universality
Some examples that support the thesis for other languages:
French
- Heureusement, sans doubte que Pierre viendra. (Fortunately, P. will no doubt come)
- Sans doubte, Heureusement que Pierre viendra. (No doubt P. will be happy to come)
English
- John doesn't any longer always win his games. (J. no longer always wins his games)
- John doesn't always any longer win his games. (J. always doesn't win his games anymore)
Serbo-Croatian
- Brzo opet ponovi šta si rekao. (Quickly repeat what you said again)
- Opet brzo ponovi šta si rekao. (Quickly repeat what you said again)
Hebrew
- Hu tamid hevin legamrey heitev 'et dvarexa. (He always understands your words perfectly well)
- Hu tamid hevin heitev legamrey 'et dvarexa. (He always fully understands your words well)
Chinese
- Ta xianzai yexu qicheng le. (He may have gone now)
- Ta yexu xianzai qicheng le. (He may have gone now)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cinque, Guglielmo: Adverbs and functional heads: a cross-linguistic perspective . Oxford University Press, New York 1999, OCLC 567929668 .
- ↑ Cinque, Guglielmo: Adverbs and functional heads: a cross-linguistic perspective . Oxford University Press, New York 1999, OCLC 567929668 , pp. 106 .
- ↑ Cinque, Guglielmo: Adverbs and functional heads: a cross-linguistic perspective . Oxford University Press, New York 1999, OCLC 567929668 , pp. 49-51 .
- ↑ Cinque, Guglielmo: Adverbs and functional heads: a cross-linguistic perspective . Oxford University Press, New York 1999, OCLC 567929668 , pp. 33-39 .