AdvType: semantic class of adverb
| Values: | Loc | Tim |
This lexical feature is applied to those traditionally adverbial elements which are not derived from adjectival bases and which express spatiotemporal relations. As such, it distinguishes only between the two semantical subclasses of space (Loc) and time (Tim).
For these kinds of deictic elements, it is not always easy to identify the reference as a point in space or a moment in time, since lexical strategies for both categories often overlap or are derived one from the other. In Latin, we note the (universally widespread) tendency for spatial expression to extend metaphorically to include temporal ones (Haspelmath, 1997), so that in ambiguous cases a preference is given to the former, especially when terms of pronominal/determinantal nature are involved. In any case, the value for AdvType is selected on a lexical basis, and is not determined by context (or other semantic nuances, like succession) in the sentence: the same lexeme will always receive the same AdvType value.
Expressions of location and time are usually reflected at the syntactic level by the semantic lmod and tmod subrelations respectively, which are applied both to obl and advmod relations, and thus represent the phenomenon independently from its morpholexical realisation.
The actual morphosyntactic nature of spatiotemporal as traditionally labelled ADVs might be challenged, as they show deviant behaviour from other adverbs, and lean towards pronouns.
Loc: spatial expression
Expression of location, without differentiating modes like state, movement to or from, transition…, even if Latin has specialised terms for some of them. Many terms in this category are ultimately derived from pronouns or determiners.
Examples
- hic ‘here (state)’, hinc ‘hence’
- effectively part of the paradigm of hic ‘this (one)’, using among others the crystallised locative case
- quo ‘whither’
- ubi ‘where’, unde ‘whence’
- procul ‘far away’ (related to procello ‘to drive away’)
- sometimes considered to act as a preposition
Tim: temporal expression
Expression of time. The origin of these terms is usually more varied than for spatial expressions, and they often incorporate nominal or prepositional elements.
Examples
- quando ‘when’
- mox ‘soon’
- interim ‘meanwhile’ (from inter ‘between’ and an accusative form of is ‘he’)
- diu ‘for a long time’ (from an ablative form of archaic U-stem dius, for dies ‘day’)
References
Haspelmath, M. (1997). From Space to Time: Temporal Adverbials in the World’s Languages, LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 03, Munich, Germany: LINCOM EUROPA.
AdvType in other languages: [arr] [gn] [ka] [la] [mdf] [myv] [quc] [tpn] [u] [yrl]