Questions about adverbial functions

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Macnerd
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Questions about adverbial functions

Postby Macnerd » 2016-12-28, 21:34

German uses only 3 categories for adverbial functions - time, manner, place.

Adverbs can describe what, when, where, why & how.

Is this correct?
Time - When
Manner - What, Why & How
Place - Where

Pardon the cliche, but according to my calculations, there are 6 possible combinations of time, manner & place:

time, manner, place
time, place, manner

manner, place, time
manner, time, place

place, time, manner
place, manner, time

English uses manner, place & time order.

I wonder if there is a logical order for adverb word order?

So, can adverbial functions be completely categorized into only 3 categories - time, manner, place?

Macnerd
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Re: Questions about adverbial functions

Postby Macnerd » 2017-01-04, 19:53

Would someone please answer my questions?

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linguoboy
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Re: Questions about adverbial functions

Postby linguoboy » 2017-01-04, 20:35

Macnerd wrote:German uses only 3 categories for adverbial functions - time, manner, place.

That's an oversimplification. "Adverb" is kind of a catch-all category and not all adverbs used in German can be easily categorised according to this scheme. From the Wikipedia article (my emphasis):
Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc.


Macnerd wrote:Is this correct?
Time - When
Manner - What, Why & How
Place - Where

Technically, manner is "how". "What" and "why" are not typically answered with adverbs.

Macnerd wrote:I wonder if there is a logical order for adverb word order?

The default ordering of German adverbs is considered to be time - manner - place. Actual usage varies quite a bit depending on syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic considerations.

I find this a useful introduction to the usage of adverbs in German: http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/abinitio/chap10-14.html. There are others available online, some more comprehensive and some less.
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