The Syntactic Distribution of Temporal Bare-NP Adverbs in DP

Abstract

This article aims to explore the distribution of temporal bare-NP adverbs, such as this month, this year, tonight, yesterday, etc., within DP in English. Bare-NP adverbs show different distributional characteristics from the adverbs ending with –ly, which is a representative morphological characteristic of adverbs. Interesting examples extracted from English newspapers at COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) show that temporal bare-NP adverbs occupy the position between the head N and its complement of-PP in the linear word order. Here is an example: the ultimate test this year of Obama. A head N and its complement is in sisterhood, so any other constituents cannot intervene between the head and its complement. To explain the grammaticality of this interesting word order, first, I claim that bare-NP adverbs directly merge with a specifier of FP. FP is a sister of D, and a head F is between D and N. This proposal is supported by the analysis of Cinque (1999). I suggest that bare-NP adverbs show the same behavior as a modifier as adjectives in DP. Therefore, it is acceptable that bare-NP adverbs must be placed in the specifier of FP like the adjectives. Second, I propose that a noun head moves leftwards up to another F higher than bare-NP adverbs. It is based on a theory of Universal Grammar. Most movements in natural languages are to the left.