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8.3.Categorial types of adverbial modifiers
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It is generally accepted that adverbial phrases can be of different categorial types. They can be adjectival, prepositional, nominal, and they can also take the form of a clause. We illustrate this in (140) with temporal adverbial phrases.

140
a. Jan gaat erg vroeg weg.
adjective phrase
  Jan goes very early away
  'Jan is leaving quite early.'
b. Jan gaat voor zonsopgang weg.
prepositional phrase
  Jan goes before sunrise away
  'Jan is leaving before sunrise.'
c. Jan gaat volgende week weg.
noun phrase
  Jan goes next week away
  'Jan is leaving next week.'
d. Jan gaat weg voordat de zon op komt.
clause
  Jan goes away before the sun up comes
  'Jan is leaving before the sun rises.'

It is not the case, however, that all semantic types of adverbials can be realized in all four forms, and this section discusses the restrictions we find. First, however, Section 8.3.1 explains why we do not follow traditional grammars in distinguishing a separate category of adverbs. Sections 8.3.2 and 8.3.3 then discuss the constraints on the categorial realization of VP and clause adverbials.

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