The Cross-linguistic Parametric Settings in Object-Oriented Adverbs and Their Exo-skeletal Derivation

Object-oriented adverbs categorially appear to be adverbs but semantically describe the state of the object. They do not exist in every language and behave differently in those which do have them. This paper attributes this difference to parametric settings for the head of degree phrase in terms of its visibility on the level of universal grammar. Based on Borer’s Exo-skeletal Model, this paper tries to derive the relevant structures in Mandarin, Japanese and English, and proposes that a successful derivation rests upon two operations: the introduction of the argument via the specifier of functional projections and the raising of the root to combine with the adverbial marker. This analysis in addition indicates that there is no structural common basis underlying object-oriented adverbs and VA constructions. The result shows that words that are simple on the surface may have a complicated derived structure.