On The Structural Position And Semantic Interpretation Of Temporal Adverbials

It has been observed that the syntactic position of temporal adverbial in a sentence not only affects the acceptability of the whole sentence, it also makes a significant contribution to defining the base positions of temporal adverbials and to the sentence's interpretation. A sentence with a certain type of temporal adverbial in the sentence-final position is probably ambiguous between two available readings, but one reading is lost when the adverbial appears in the sentence-initial position.The differences of interpretation appear when adverbials appear in sentence-initial position (LP) or sentence-final position (RP). LP temporal adverbials have a strong tendency to receive what have been called "higher" interpretations: namely, "wide scope", "up-to-now", "position-definite" and "reference time". In contrast, RP counterparts were equally likely to receive "lower" interpretations, namely, both "wide scope" and "narrow scope" interpretations, both "existential" and "up-to-now" interpretations, both "position-definite" and "non-position-definite" interpretations, and both "reference time" and "event time" interpretations. The basic reason to this claim, according to some researchers, is that these interpretative asymmetries between LP and RP temporal adverbials in English have a structural source which serves as an essential connection existing between certain interpretations and higher or lower positions.Based on thorough investigation of the syntactic options for temporal adverbials and the semantic interpretations of sentences, this study attempts to make an up-to-date exploration of the issues of how syntactic position and semantic interpretation are related in the domain of temporal adverbials. Syntactically, the question of how adverbials integrated into the structure of the clause has been, and continues to be, a moot question. Any random browsing of syntactic papers concerning adverbials will be devoted to some extent to the syntactic positions for adverbs and adverbials. The debate continues to be focusing on the three positional options in local trees for AdvPs (and partly also for adverbials of other phrasal categories): do they occur as complements, specifiers, or adjuncts? A traditional view holds that the obligatoriness of adverbials with certain verbs would justify considering them complements, that adjuncts may be projected as innermost complements of V. However, in this approach, the issue of whether and when members of manner, locative and temporal adverbials could be demoted and thus appear in adjoined positions instead of as sister to the verbs or specifier of the verbs, is left uncommented. It is considered to be standard to analyze adverbials as adjuncts, that adverbials are adjoined at different levels of clauses; the relative order among adverbs is attributed to independent semantic scope principles. Within a base-position, adverbials of the different semantic categories associated with this position can be freely adjoined in any order without giving rise to scope ambiguities, as is suggested by the more sophisticated adjunct analyses that have been developed during the last years. At the same time, however, many approaches assume that adverbials occur as specifying phrasal categories in spe-head configuration, as specifiers of projections, which dominate the verbal projection. Recently a number of articles have criticized the analysis of adverbs as specifiers of different functional projections, proposing a return to the traditional adjunction analysis on the basis that if the relative order among adverbs is attributed to independent semantic scope principles (belonging to the conceptual-intentional interface), their syntax can be drastically simplified, by essentially allowing, as in the traditional approach, free adjunction to any category. Admittedly, the lively debate between specifier approach and adjunct approach shows that the former approach is friendlier to the idea that syntax determines semantics, while the latter approach to the idea that semantics determines syntax, each of which provides a different answer to how syntax and semantics interact in the domain of adverbials.The demonstration of the differences in interpretations between LP/RP temporal adverbials is also one pursuit of the current thesis; it is believed that the claim made by some linguists that these interpretative asymmetries between LP and RP temporal adverbials have a structural source which serves as an essential connection existing between certain interpretations and higher or lower positions is somehow problematic for the repeated occurrences of many counterexamples concerning the availability of "lower" interpretations for LP, which is believed to be taking a higher position. Even the mere description of the behavior of adverbials has continued to produce more and more confusing data than could probably have been expected by them. Many more counterexamples have been found as the process of researching the LP/RP temporal adverbials to the traditional claim, which were to be taken to deny that LP adverbials do not have "lower" interpretation.