chapter 2 stance adverbs qualifying a standpoint - LOT publications

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CHAPTER 2
by the speaker but also an evaluation of the actor too. While such adverbs may
occupy initial position in a sentence and may be relatively flexible in occupying
other positions, they cannot be considered as qualifying the whole utterance.
Consider the following examples (taken from Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, pp.
675-6):
(1) He answered the question foolishly
(2) He foolishly answered the question
(3) Foolishly, he answered the question
The same form of the adverb foolishly complements the verb in (1), while it
qualifies the verb in both (2) and (3). Note that only (1) can be given as an
answer to the question „How did he answer the question?‟. In none of the
above cases, however, can the adverb be considered as qualifying the whole
utterance, not even in (3) where the adverb appears in front position. Consider
the following text taken from the COBUILD corpus:
(4) Many East German factories were chronically overmanned under the
old system and, according to Joachim Nawrocki, the loss of many
jobs is inevitable: Many people are worried about their jobs. Quite
rightly, because the East German economy is a complete shambles
and has the wrong structure.
In the above text, the adverb rightly expresses the author‟s comment about the
event described in the proposition „Many people are worried about their jobs‟.
At the same time, the use of the adverb rightly expresses the author‟s evaluation
of the people who are worried. The author can be considered committed to a
standpoint paraphrased as: „My point of view is that the people in East
Germany are right being worried about their jobs‟ or to a standpoint
paraphrased as: „My point of view is that it is right that people are worried
about their jobs in East Germany‟. In either case, the adverb rightly cannot be
said to qualify the standpoint that the author has advanced, since it is precisely
that which receives support by the subordinate clause that follows: „Because the
East German economy is a complete shambles and has the wrong structure‟.
The other sub-group that Huddleston and Pullum distinguish within the
group of „act-related adjuncts‟ includes adverbs such as accidentally, deliberately,
and willingly, which “do not reflect a subjective evaluation of the act but relate
to the intentions or willingness of the agent” (2002, p. 676). These adverbs
cannot be paraphrased in the way adverbs like foolishly can: „*It was deliberate of
him to answer two questions‟. Moreover, they are less flexible in the positions
they can occupy in the sentence. Nevertheless, none of the sub-groups of „actrelated
adjuncts‟ can be said to qualify the standpoint that can be reconstructed
from the utterance in which they appear. This is because the comment that they