On the semantics of adverbial non-inherent adjectives

Abstract Non-inherent adjectives have been defined as attributive-only adjectives that cannot characterize the noun they precede (Bolinger 1967. Adjectives in English: Attribution and predication. Lingua 18. 1–34: 1). These adjectives have been comprehensively analyzed in relation to nouns (Levi 1978. The syntax and semantics of complex nominals . London: Academic Press), but their relation with other word-classes, namely adverbs, remains unexplored. Corpus studies of non-inherent adjectives with adverbial meaning are scarce, and the evidence provided is limited to particular sets of adjectives (Ghesquière and Davidse 2011. The development of intensification scales in noun-intensifying uses of adjectives: Sources, paths and mechanisms of change. English Language and Linguistics 15(2). 251–277) or on these adjectives in specific registers (Pavlíčková 2014. On the indirectness of non-inherent adjectives. In Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová & Milada Walková (eds.), English matters IV: A collection of papers , 34–41. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita v Prešove). Thus, based on the analysis of 53,737 bigrams extracted by lemma from the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English , the present research provides evidence of non-inherent adjectives with adverbial meaning. The results present quantitative and qualitative data that demonstrate that non-inherent adjectives convey several adverbial meanings, including process, degree , or time location , among others. Qualitative data show the relevance of semantics in the ability of the adjective to develop non-inherent senses and the influence of other syntactic features of the noun phrase. The evidence provided adds to the description of non-inherent adjectives and shows that these lexical units could be relevant in a wider framework such as the adjective/adverb interface.