Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Adverbs

« arguments to a predicate actually function as adverbial modifiers.

Perhaps the best known account of this type isRoderick Chisholm's discussion of a certain class of statements about appearances.

Chisholm suggests that a manwho ‘sees spots before his eyes' should be thought of as ‘sensing in a spotty manner' or as someone whom things‘appeared to spottily' ( 1957 ).

This philosophical move is designed to rid the locution of any implication that in sensing spots before his eyes the man is sensing a mysterious object, an appearance, which is before him, his eyesor his mind (see Mental states, adverbial theory of ).

In a similar vein, Goodman ( [1968] 1976 ) construed the locution ‘ x represents an F', under the condition where there is no implication that such an F exists, as ‘is an F- representation', effectively treating the predicate F adverbially.

The suggestions of Chisholm and Goodman, left as they are, become problematic if the project of giving a combinatorial semantics for language is taken seriously (seeCompositionality ).

Suppose x is a picture and (9) is true, with no existential implications: (9) x represents two unicorns galloping in a field.

If we write, with Goodman, x is a two-unicorns-galloping-in-a-field representation, then we have yet to provide a semantic structure to go along with the syntax.

But there must be some such structure,since, for example, (9) obviously implies x represents more than one unicorn in motion.

Similar issues arise for the predicate-operator theory of manner adverbs.

For instance, that theory does not immediately deliver the obviousimplication (10) John walked slowly; therefore, John walked.

In Montague ( 1974 ) and much subsequent literature, this and similar implications are the consequences of semantic postulates in the sense of Carnap ( 1956 ).

Even with such postulates, the relation between the adverbial constructions in (1) and their adjectival paraphrases (4)requires clarification.

By contrast, the predicative theory proposed by Davidson is specifically designed to capturesuch implications and paraphrases.

The premise of (10) is rendered as (11) (9e)(walk(John, e) & slow( e)), that is, ‘There was a walk by John and it was slow'; and the conclusion has the form (12) (9e)walk(John, e), ‘There was a walk by John', a trivial implicate of the premise.

For the paraphrase relation between (1) and (4), we have only tonote that the complex noun ‘John's walk' would be understood as a definite description of an action; that is, as‘(the e) walk(John, e)'.

‘John's walk was slow' then becomes (13) slow((the e) walk(John, e)).

Given any standard treatment of the definite description, (13) will imply (11).

However, the Davidsonian view is committed to supplyingextra, hidden structure in all cases, and to taking events as individuals, a step that has often been consideredmetaphysically dubious.

Ensembles of adverbs show ambiguity of scope (see Scope ).

For example, one interpretation of (14) has John being clever in that he made a stupid response: (14) John cleverly respondedstupidly.

Modal adverbs such as ‘necessarily' and ‘contingently', which modify whole sentences, allow singular termsand quantifiers within their superficial scope to be interpreted as outside it (a point known to the terministlogicians).

Tracking the relative scopes of modalities is part of the contemporary application of modal logic.

As inthe cases of manner and thematic adverbs, there are both operator-theories and predicate-theories of theseexpressions; that is, the modalities may be developed as one-place modal operators, with the same syntax asnegation; or as predicates of sentences in a first-order formulation of the logical syntax of natural language (seeModal operators ).

Montague ( 1963 ) argued that the latter was unacceptable since the normal laws of modal logic could not all be maintained, on pain of paradox.

The argument has subsequently been developed and discussed byothers: see Koons ( 1992 ) for a survey and response.

3 Extensionality Adverbial constructions of both the manner and thematic types, together with others, show a kind of superficial but persistent non-extensionality: superficial,because it may disappear under analysis; and persistent, because it may show up in places that the analysis itselfuncovers.

Predicate-operator theories can accept non-extensionality as the norm.

Supposing, for example, thatthose who breathe are exactly those who perceive, it is absurd to infer that x perceives rapidly from the premise that x breathes rapidly.

The predicate-operator theory, taking all operations to be in intension, has no such consequence.

Or supposing that those who went to New York were exactly those who visited Times Square, it doesnot follow that if Mary reluctantly went to New York she also reluctantly visited Times Square.

For theories ofDavidson's type, the constructions x breathed rapidly x perceived rapidly are of the same logical type, but the events on which the adverb is predicated are different.

The coextensiveness of ‘breathe' and ‘perceive' amounts tothe coextensiveness of (for some e) breathe( x, e) (for some e) perceive( x, e).

Such coextensiveness no more implies the equivalence of ‘ x breathed rapidly' to ‘ x perceived rapidly' than the coextensiveness of ‘ x kicked something' and ‘ x saw something' would imply the equivalence of ‘ x saw something red' and ‘ x kicked something red'. Non-extensionality is more troublesome when one considers events related as genus and species.

For example,‘Mary flew slowly across Spain' does not imply ‘Mary travelled slowly across Spain', even though any event of flyingis an event of travelling.

It follows that it is inadequate to represent ‘Mary flew slowly across Spain' simply as (forsome e) (fly(Mary, e) & across Spain( e) & slow( e)).

Rather, we must add that the event e, which was a flying and therefore a travelling, was slow for a flying .

These examples show at least that manner adverbials are relative to the sets of events against which a given event is evaluated.

Other examples may show that it is not merely setsbut also properties, not extensionally individuated, that form the background.

In any case, non-extensionality isevident in constructions with thematic adverbs.

Davidson, following a suggestion by Hector-Neri Castañeda,considered examples such as that of Oedipus intentionally married Jocasta, from which it does not follow thatOedipus intentionally married his mother.

In this case, the locus of non-extensionality, although due to the presenceof the adverb ‘intentionally', is the predicate ‘intend', from which the adverb is derived.

In this sense, it isindependent of any peculiarities of adverbs, as in the Davidsonian paraphrase Oedipus married Jocasta, and heintended to marry Jocasta.

Higginbotham ( 1989 ) explores a number of similar examples.. »