Non-lyadverbs in preverbal position: the case offast

Abstract

English adverbs are often classified according to the range of positions that are available to them. One such group includes items which allegedly can only occupy the VP-final position. These are typically non-lyadverbs such ashard,wellandfast. However, although counterexamples to this claim can be found in corpora, few attempts have been made to reconsider the distributional characteristics of these adverbs. This article therefore offers a corpus-based analysis of the adverbfast, whose preverbal occurrence has so far been largely ignored. The analysis seeks to establish the extent – expressed quantitatively – to whichfastis found in this position. We also explore the typical contexts of preverbalfastand investigate factors which may be responsible for the variation between preverbal and postverbal positions. We show that the nature of these factors may be genre-related, lexico-grammatical, syntactic, semantic or pragmatic, and that adverb position may be determined by a combination of these factors.