Dimensiuni ale limbajului n context carceral

2.3.2. When dealing with groups which contain decât/than/but + complementizer să/că/that; relative adverbs:
dacă/if, unde/where, când/when, cum/how; relative pronouns: care/which, cine/who, ce/what one cannot
discard the embedding character of the complementizer group following decât. These alone are sufficient to
instantiate different types of embedding. The presence of decât/than/but does not influence the grammatical
function of the sub-clause it precedes, but rather it marks semantically the second phrase of the construction.
(11) Nu s-a întors(altcândva) decât când s-a împărţit averea./ He came no other time than when the fortune was given.
(12) Să nu faci altfel decât cum îţi dictează conştiinţa./Don’t act otherwise than how your conscience tells
you to.
(13) Nu mă duc decât unde am chef să merg./I don’t go anywhere else than/ but where I want to.
2.4. Adverbs + syntactic function
The adverbs we are talking about is only/just/numai/doar. These are also interpreted as particle operators
which, unlike determiners or complementizers, lack inherent syntactic categorical features. This is due to its
ability of combining with any phrasal category 1 . Furthermore, these operators cannot acquire categorical
status unless they appear in two scope positions:
- sister of VP
- taking scope over non-propositional domains.
Inspired by Rothstein (1991), Grosu and Bayer further argue in favor of considering only/numai a “minor”
functional category that has no categorical formal features, but only semantically oriented ones. From this
point of view, phrases of the type [Prt XP]/ [XP Prt] have the distribution of XP. The following examples
make this idea clear: that only/numai enters a wide variety of constructions.
(14) subject: Numai Mihai a venit (dintre toţi invitaţii)./Only Michael came out of everybody invited.
(15) DO: L-am felicitat numai pe Mihai./I congratulated only Michael.
(16) IO: I-am oferit o floare numai Mariei./ I offered a flower only to Mary.
(17) prepositional object: Se ocupă numai de nevoile sale./He takes care only of his needs.
(18) subject complement: Această casă e numai a ta../This house is only yours.
(19) place adverbial: Se plimbă numai în parc./He strolls only in the park.
(20) time adverbial: Pleacă numai la două./ He leaves only at two o’clock.
(21) manner adverbial: Vorbeşte numai politicos./ He speaks only politely.
(22) reason adverbial: A venit numai pentru că se plictisea./He came only because he got bored.
(23) purpose adverbial: A venit numai ca să facă scandal./He came only to cause scandal.
(24) predicate: Cântăreţul numai încearcă să cânte./The singer only tries to sing.
3. Conclusions
1 Grosu and Bayer 1996, in Motapanyane (2000:64).