Adverbials and

Other Matters
 About last session
• Basic verb phrase, why was it called basic?

• Verb phrase? What do you know about phrase?

• It is a language unit
• Morpheme  word  phrase  clause  sentence
• Two words (or more) joined as a unit that shows a
certain syntactical function (Hartmann and James,
1992). E.g.: new car, very happy, and pencil case.
• Blackboard, airport, suitcase, bathtub, open-mind, air-
conditioning are Compounds (Bussman, 1996.
Hartmann & James, 1992. Syamsuar & Mualim, 2020)
How did you draw the phrase markers of
these sentences?

1. The eggs cracked

2. The decision depends on these reports
3. The class appointed Jim their class leader
 How did you draw the phrase markers of
these sentences?

1. The eggs cracked

2. The decision depends on these reports
3. The class appointed Jim their class leader
S S S

NP VP
NP VP NP VP

V V PP
The eggs [intrans] The decision [prep] The class
[prep] NP V NP NP
depends [ditrans]
cracked
on These appointed Jim their class
reports leader
 What are the sub-
categories of verb?
• Transitive verb = eat, see, pick
• Intransitive verb = swim, run, sleep
• Ditransitive verb = give, make, tell
• Intensive verb = is, are, taste
• Complex transitive verb = find, see, make

• Prepositional verb = think [about/of]

look [at], put [on]
ADVERBIA
LS
 Adjunct adverbials
 beside a stream.
• Old Sam sunbathed
 like a maniac.
 in the spring.
• Max spotted those wildcats
 with his binoculars.

• They give additional [not essential] information.

• When a constituent within a VP functions as the PPs

in these sentences they are called adjunct adverbial
(or simply, adjunct).
 Other example of adjunct,
what are the subcategories of the verbs?

• Ed was rather extravagant in the bazaar.

• Sigmund was an auctioneer for three years.

• Oscar was in the engine-room in a flash.

• William gave Millie some bleach on her birthday.

• Liza put the liquor under the bed for safekeeping.

 Adjunct
• adjuncts express a wide range of ideas,
including manner, means, purpose, reason,
place, and time (including duration and
frequency). They tend to answer questions
like Where? Why? When? How? What for? How
long? How often? How many times?
• In this regards, adverb phrases (AdvP) can also
function as adjunct adverbials.
 Adjunct
• Here are examples of AdvPs functioning, like the PPs
above, as adverbials:
• Sam sunbathed frequently.
• He spotted the wildcats quite accidentally.
• She put it under the bed surreptitiously.

• Many adverbs are not as easily identified as such by -ly

morphology, particularly adverbs relating to time: again,
yet, still, already, seldom, often, always, ever, never.
• certain NPs can function as adverbials: last year,
yesterday, tonight, tomorrow, the day before yesterday,
the day after tomorrow, this afternoon
 Levels of Verb Phrase
• How do adjunct adverbials fit into the
structure of VPs?

“Max spotted those wildcats in the spring”

• Answering this question involves making a
decision about the constituent analysis of
spotted those wildcats in the spring.
If the PP modifies just the verb spotted, then it should be
a sister of the verb, along with those wildcats.
Intuitively, the adjunct PP seems to modify a constituent
consisting of [V + NP] rather than just the V. Those wildcats – as
a complement of the verb – completes the sense of the verb
and, together with that verb, forms a unit of sense.
Draw the phrase markers, bear in mind that bake is a
[transitive] verb and move is a [complex transitive] verb!

• Arnold baked a cake in the kitchen

• Arnold moved the stove to the kitchen
• Bevis mended his car in the garage
• Bevis put his car in the garage
 The mobility of
adverbials
• A very prominent characteristic of adverbials is
that they can appear in all sorts of positions in the
sentence, not just following the V and its
complements.
• She put it under the bed very surreptitiously.
• She put it very surreptitiously under the bed.
• She very surreptitiously put it under the bed.
• Very surreptitiously, she put it under the bed.

• Notice in passing that it cannot come between the

V and its direct object.
 Spot the difference
between these
(a) They slowly answered all the questions, and

(b) They answered all the questions slowly.

(a) suggests they were slow in answering the

whole batch of questions, whereas (b) suggests
they answered each individual question slowly
 Phrasal verbs
• He called up the street.
• He called up the boss.

• up the street is a PP functioning as an adjunct.

It modifies a VP that consists of the intransitive
V called. S

NP VP

V PP
[intrans]

called up the street

By contrast, you will have noticed that the string up the
boss does not form a unit of sense, in fact is not a
constituent, and hence not a PP. Instead, up belongs
more with call, to form the phrasal verb call up.
• There are many such phrasal verbs in English,
some more idiomatic than others:
TRANS: call off, look up, put down, hand down,
hand over, sound out.
TRANS and INTRANS: give up, give in, drink up.
PREP: put up (with NP), go along (with NP), run out
(of NP), sign up ( for NP).
INTENS: turn out, end up, wind up.
 Phrasal Verb vs. Prep. Verb
• Although up, off, down, over, and along look suspiciously
like prepositions, they are categorised as particles in this
position.
• a phrasal verb consists of a verb + a particle.

• “He looked up the street”, if the VP consists of V + PP,

means he would be looking up the street to see who was
coming.
• “He looked up the street”, if the VP consists of look up
[trans] with “the street” as direct object, means he would
be trying to locate the street in a street atlas
 Ellipsis
• The omission from sentences of obligatory
elements capable of being understood in the
context of use is called ellipsis.
• Ellipsis creates acceptable, but nonetheless
grammatically incomplete, sentences. Even
subjects can be ellipted, as in
• Visited Madame Sosostris this morning.
• Max played the tuba in the street.

• Max played in the street.

• Jean-Pierre ate the couscous rapidly.

• Jean-Pierre ate rapidly.

 Sentence adverbials
(S adverbials)
• disjunct and conjunct adverbials, together are
called sentence adverbials (S-adverbials).
• [1a] Buster admitted everything frankly.
• [1b] Buster admitted everything, frankly.
• [2a] Max can only do the tango rather
awkwardly.
• [2b] Max can only do the tango, rather
awkwardly.
• All the [b] examples are sentence adverbials, –
more specifically, disjunct adverbials.
• Disjunct adverbials provide some comment
by the speaker/writer about what she is
reporting or about how she feels she herself
is expressing what she has to say.
 conjunct adverbials
• There is a group of AdvPs and PPs that have a
quite specific interpretation and can only have
an S-adverbial function.
• Examples are: (AdvPs) nevertheless, therefore,
furthermore, thus, however, incidentally, and
(PPs) on the contrary, by contrast, in other
words, for a start, in short, in conclusion, on the
other hand.
• Such S-adverbials are sometimes more
specifically referred to as ‘conjunct
adverbials’.
• They indicate what kind of relation holds
between the sentences they modify and the
preceding or following discourse.
• In short, you’re fired.
• You’ve got no clothes on, for a start.
Find the adverbials (Adjunct, Disjunct, and
Conjunct), also tell the verb subcategories
• That music very quickly drove him mad.

• They were in the office for twelve hours every single

day.
• Incidentally, I sold your vests to the museum for a
small fortune.
• Murdstone brought the child up strictly, really.

• Few students worry about exams until the end of

term.
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