Abstract
The paper focuses on the following questions: (i) Do adverbs originate in spec positions rather than in adjoined positions? (ii) How does the pre- vs. postverbal position of adverbs correlate with OV and VO? (iii) Why is the sentence-medial position highly restricted in VO languages? (iv) What is the adequate structural position for a postverbal adverbial? (v) Why is the order of postverbal adverbials a mirror image of the order of preverbal occurrences of these adverbials? The main body of empirical evidence is comparative evidence from German and English adverbial syntax. First, it is argued that for a wide range of data, an adverb-in-spec analysis does not provide descriptively or explanatorily adequate accounts. Second, the head-initial or head-final property of VPs and NPs in a given language is shown to be crucial for understanding the different patterns of adverbials in OV and VO. Adverbials that follow the head of the phrase they relate to are claimed to be embedded, adverbials that precede the head are claimed to be adjoined.
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