Most adverbials are like other clausal constituents in that they can be moved into the clause-initial position under certain conditions. This is especially true for adverbial phrases that can be questioned, as shown in (184) for three types of VP adverbials.

It will be clear that this kind of movement can affect the relative word order of adverbials when more than one adverbial phrase is present. This is illustrated in (185) for temporal and comitative adverbials; although we will see that there is reason to assume that temporal adverbials precede comitative adverbials in the unmarked order, wh-movement can easily reverse this order.

Many adverbials that cannot be questioned can still be placed in the sentence-initial position by topicalization. For example, this is true of modal adverbs; although Section 8.3.3 has shown that they cannot be questioned, the examples in (186) show that topicalization can change the unmarked order of the temporal clause adverbial morgentomorrow and the adverb waarschijnlijkprobably.

Note in passing that there are additional restrictions on wh-movement; for instance, the examples in (187) show that while temporal VP adverbials (here: hoe laat/om drie uur) can easily be moved across temporal clause adverbials (here: morgen) in questions, this seems to be more difficult in topicalization constructions. Since this kind of intervention effect has not been studied in detail, we have to leave this issue for future research.

For our present purpose, it suffices to say that the effects of wh-movement can be easily eliminated by restricting our attention to the relative order of the adverbials in the middle field of the clause; for a detailed discussion of wh-movement, we refer the reader to Section 11.3.

Another way of changing the unmarked order of adverbials is by extraposition, which is especially common for adverbials of the category PP or clause. We will see later that there are grounds for assuming that contingency adverbials such as vanwege het mooie weerbecause of the nice weather in (188a) precede comitative adverbials such as met Elswith Els in the unmarked order. However, extraposition of the contingency adverbial can easily reverse this order, as shown in (188b). In fact, (188c) shows that extraposition of the two adverbials together also reverses the order, a phenomenon known as the mirror effect; cf. Koster (1974).

Again, for our present purpose, it suffices to say that the interference of extraposition can be easily eliminated by restricting our attention to the relative order of the adverbials in the middle field of the clause; for a detailed discussion of extraposition, including the mirror effect, see Chapter 12.

Even if we restrict our investigation to the middle field of the clause, we still have to deal with movement operations that can change the word order in this domain of the clause. One such movement operation is focus movement, which can move a contrastively focused phrase into a position preceding the negative clause adverbial nietnot. This is illustrated in (189), where the focus accent is indicated by small caps.

One way to exclude interference from focus movement is to restrict our investigation to sentences with a neutral (non-contrastive) intonation pattern. For prepositional adverbial phrases, it is also often possible to exclude focus movement by using a weak pronoun as the complement of the preposition (or the weak pronominal PP ermeewith it), as shown in (190). For further discussion of focus movement, see Section 13.3.2.

Weak proforms tend to be placed in the left periphery of the middle field of the clause (immediately after the canonical subject position), regardless of their syntactic function. That this also applies to some adverbial phrases is illustrated by the locational adverbs in (191): placing the adverbial PP in Leiden in a position preceding the modal adverb waarschijnlijkprobably leads to a degraded result, while the corresponding weak locational proform er must precede it.

For our present purpose, it is sufficient to say that the effect of weak proform shift can be eliminated by simply excluding weak proforms from our examination; for further discussion of weak proform shift, see Section 13.4.

This subsection has shown that the study of the unmarked order of adverbials is complicated by the fact that most adverbials are like other clausal constituents in that they can be moved under certain conditions. In order to eliminate the effects of movement as much as possible, we will limit our investigation to the relative order of adverbials in the middle field of the clause, discuss only sentences with a neutral intonation pattern, and avoid the use of weak adverbial proforms.

We will examine the unmarked order of the process adverbial by considering the placement of the various subtypes relative to adjectival manner adverbials such as zorgvuldigcarefully. Although it is not difficult to find instrument/means adverbials to the left of manner adverbials, as illustrated in the primeless examples in (193), there is reason to believe that this order is the result of focus movement: the primed examples show that their pronominalized counterpart ermeewith it cannot precede the manner adverbial, but must follow it.

Note that pronominal PPs are preferably split, as shown in (194). These examples supports our conclusion that instrument/means adverbials follow the manner adverbs in the unmarked order, because the stranded preposition mee is usually assumed to occupy the base position of the PP (because of the so-called freezing effect); cf. Koster (1978: §2.6.4.4), Corver (2006b/2017) and Ruys (2008).

Since instrument and means adverbials do not easily co-occur, we will not discuss their relative order here. Example (195a) shows that manner adverbials tend to precede domain adverbials under a non-contrastive intonation pattern. This seems to be confirmed by a Google search (5/13/2024), which showed that the string [medisch grondig onderzocht] occurred less than 10 times, while [grondig medisch onderzocht] yielded more than 50 hits; the order [medisch zorgvuldig onderzocht] did not occur at all, while [zorgvuldig medisch onderzocht] yielded 4 hits. This finding seems to be consistent with the fact that domain adverbials tend to follow instrumental PPs, such as met medicijnenwith drugs in example (195b). Recall that the given judgments hold only under a non-contrastive intonation pattern: assigning a focus accent to medisch significantly improves the marked orders.

Finally, example (196a) shows that volitional adverbials precede manner adverbials. By transitivity we can conclude that they also precede the other process adverbials; that this conclusion is indeed correct is shown in (196b) for a means adverbial.

Thus, the examples in this subsection suggest that the unmarked order of process adverbials is as follows: volition > manner > instrument/means > domain.

The passive construction in (197b) clearly shows that passive door-PPs precede comitative met-PPs: reversing the order results in a severely degraded result.

Although it is not difficult to find agentive door-PPs to the left of manner adverbials, there is evidence that this order is the result of focus movement: example (198a) shows that the door-PP must follow the manner adverbial when the nominal of the preposition door is a weak pronoun. Since comitative met-PPs must follow agentive door-PPs, we expect by transitivity that they will also follow manner adverbials in the unmarked order: example (198b) shows that this expectation is indeed borne out.

Example (199a) shows that comitative met-PPs precede instrument/means adverbials in the unmarked order: reversing the order leads to a degraded result, regardless of the form of the nominal complement of the preposition met. Since comitative met-PPs follow agentive door-PPs in the unmarked order, we expect by transitivity that door-PPs also precede instrument/means adverbials; example (199b) shows that this expectation is also borne out.

The examples in this subsection have shown that in the unmarked case agentive adverbials are located between manner and instrument/means adverbials, while agentive door-PPs precede comitative met-PPs. We conclude that the unmarked order of process and agentive adverbials is: volition > manner > agentive > comitative > instrument/means > domain.

In the middle field of the clause, temporal VP adverbials precede locational VP adverbials, and both seem most comfortable in a position preceding the manner adverbials, although it is not easy to show conclusively that this is their unmarked position.

It is also difficult to establish the unmarked order of spatiotemporal and volitional adverbials such as vrijwilligvoluntarily and graaggladly, since the latter can easily occur in the positions indicated by “✓” and only marginally in the position indicated by the question mark.

We tentatively assume that the volitional adverbials are base-generated above the temporal adverbials, and that the alternate orders are derived by a leftward movement of the spatiotemporal adverbials. If this is true, then the unmarked order of VP adverbials is: volition > temporal > locational > manner > agentive > comitative > instrument/means > domain.

The examples in (202) show that contingency adverbials precede time adverbials; reversing this order leads to an infelicitous result.

Example (203) shows that the contingency adverbials also preferably precede the volitional adverbials.

It is not easy to determine whether the different subtypes of contingency adverbs exhibit an unmarked order, since they do not easily co-occur, so we will not digress on this issue. This means that so far we have established the following unmarked order of VP adverbials: contingency > volition > temporal > locational > manner > agentive > comitative > instrument/means > domain.

VP adverbials such as erg usually follow locational VP adverbials, as shown in (204a). It is not difficult to find agentive door-PPs to the left of degree adverbials, but there is reason to believe that this is the result of focus movement; (204b) shows that the door-PP must follow the degree adverbial when the nominal complement of the preposition door is a weak pronoun.

Because manner and degree adverbials do not seem to co-occur, the examples in (204) complete the picture by showing that the degree adverbials are located between the locational and agentive adverbials in the unmarked case.

This subsection has examined the claim in Schweikert (2005) and Cinque (2006) that VP adverbials are intrinsically ordered in neutral (non-contrastive) contexts; the tentative unmarked word order we established above is given in (205).

However, since the relative order of VP adverbials has not received much attention in the literature, we must leave it to future research to investigate whether this linear hierarchy withstands closer scrutiny.

The polarity adverbials function as the demarcations par excellence of the boundary between the lexical and the functional domain: in non-contrastive contexts they are followed by the VP adverbials and preceded by the clause adverbials. We illustrate this in (207) for the comitative VP adverbial met ʼmwith him and the epistemic modal clause adverbial waarschijnlijkprobably.

Note in passing that there are robust reasons to assume that at least the negative adverb niet is in the specifier position of a functional projection NegP, which may also be the landing site of larger negative phrases in the clause; if so, it clearly shows that negation itself is part of the functional domain of the clause. We will not digress on this here, but refer the reader to Section 13.3.1 for a detailed discussion.

Example (208a) shows that focus particles such as ookalso are placed between the epistemic modals and the polarity adverbials. Example (208b) shows that contrastively focused phrases can occupy the same position as focus particles; for this reason, Section 13.3.2 argues that focus particles are part of a functional projection FocP. Note in passing that the negative adverb niet can easily replace affirmative wel in these examples.

Aspectual adverbials precede the focus particles, but follow the modal epistemic modals. We illustrate this for the habitual adverbial gewoonlijkusually; example (209a) shows that it must precede the focus particle ook, while the somewhat awkward example in (209b) shows that it follows the epistemic modal waarschijnlijk.

Example (210a) shows that the clause-degree adverbial bijna can precede focus particles such as ook, but that it is not entirely impossible to have it after the focus particles. In many cases the second order is perfectly acceptable, but this may be due to the fact that bijna can also be used as a modifier in other contexts; cf. bijna leegnearly empty. The somewhat awkward construction in example (210b) shows that clause-degree adverbials follow epistemic modals.

We conclude from the examples in (210) that clause-degree adverbials are located in between the epistemic modals and the focus particles, but it is clear that this must be a tentative conclusion: more research is needed to establish this more firmly.

It has already been shown above for the epistemic modals that propositional-modal adverbials precede negation, focus particles, frequentative adverbials and clause-degree adverbials. The fact that the epistemic modal waarschijnlijkprobably in the above examples can easily be replaced by blijkbaarevidently shows that this is also true for evidential modals. Since the epistemic and evidential modal adverbials do not easily co-occur, we will not speculate on their relative order.

The discussion above has shown that scope-bearing clause adverbials have the unmarked word order in (211). Because relatively little research has been done on Dutch in this area, our conclusions should be considered tentative.

The placement of subject-oriented adverbials such as wijselijkwisely with respect to the scope adverbials discussed in the previous subsection is not entirely clear. Example (212a) first provides a clear example showing that speaker-oriented adverbials must precede focus particles and negation; the asterisks indicate positions where subject-oriented adverbials cannot occur. Example (212b) shows that subject-oriented adverbials can easily precede aspectual adverbials such as habitual gewoonlijk, but placing them after gewoonlijk is at least marginally possible. Finally, the somewhat awkward (c)-examples show that for some speakers the relative order of subject-oriented and propositional adverbials is essentially free; the percentage sign indicates that judgments seem to vary from speaker to speaker and from case to case.

From (212) we tentatively conclude that speaker-oriented adverbials precede all scope adverbials except propositional modal adverbials. That their ordering vis-a-vis propositional modals is not very strict may be related to the fact that at least the epistemic modals are also evaluative, in the sense that they also provide an assessment of the state of affairs expressed by the clause.

Subjective adverbials like gelukkigfortunately and helaasunfortunately are factive in the sense that they imply that the proposition is true; this explains the fact, illustrated in (213), that they always lead to an awkward result in combination with propositional adverbials, since these crucially do not presuppose the truth of the proposition.

Example (214) shows that non-factive subjective adverbials such as naar ik vreesas I fear must precede propositional modals such as waarschijnlijkprobably (unless naar ik vrees is preceded and followed by an intonation break, in which case we are dealing with an epenthetic construction). We conclude that the subjective adverbials precede the propositional adverbials in the unmarked order.

Subjective adverbials and epistemic modals provide an assessment of the state of affairs referred to by the sentence. The default interpretation is that the assessment is the speaker’s, but this interpretation can easily be overridden by contextual information. One way of doing this is to use a point-of-view adverbial such as volgens Elsaccording to Els; cf. Section 8.2.2, sub VIII. The examples in (215) show that such adverbials precede subjective and epistemic modal adverbials: this may be a matter of scope, since the interpretation of the latter depends on the former, but this is probably not the whole story, because Subsection C will show that they also precede spatiotemporal and contingency adverbials.

The discussion in this subsection has shown that we can extend the word-order generalization in (211), as in (216). Again, our conclusions should be considered tentative, for the reason given in the previous subsection.

The examples in (217) show that clausal spatiotemporal adverbials can easily precede the propositional modals. That spatiotemporal clause adverbials cannot follow the propositional adverbials is sometimes difficult to prove, because the resulting strings are often acceptable under an alternative analysis: for example, morgenvroeg in dat Jan waarschijnlijk morgenvroeg vertrektthat Jan will probably leave early tomorrow clearly functions as a one-word VP adverbial. For a detailed discussion of how to determine the actual status of spatiotemporal adverbials as VP or clause adverbials, see Section 8.2.

The examples in (218) show that clausal spatiotemporal adverbials can also precede subject-oriented adverbials such as wijselijkwisely and subjective adverbials such as helaasunfortunately, although the reverse order seems at least marginally possible.

Point-of-view adverbials such as volgens Elsaccording to Els, on the other hand, prefer to precede spatiotemporal adverbials; this is illustrated in (219).

Contingency adverbials may precede or follow the clausal spatiotemporal adverbials; we illustrate this in (220a&b) for the reason adverbial wegens ziektebecause of illness only. It seems that the order in which they precede the spatiotemporal adverbials is somewhat more natural, but the contrast is not sharp, so we leave it to future research to determine the unmarked order more precisely. Example (220c) shows that contingency adverbials prefer to precede subject-oriented adverbials.

On the basis of the examples in this subsection, we tentatively conclude that the spatiotemporal and contingency adverbials are located between the point-of-view and subjective adverbials, although there is still uncertainty about the unmarked order of the spatiotemporal and subjective/subject-oriented adverbials.

Domain adverbials such as juridisch gezienlegally speaking/from a legal point of view in (222) are relatively high in the functional domain in the clause. Because they restrict the application of the whole clause, there is a strong tendency to place them in the sentence-initial position, but they can also occur in the middle field of the clause.

Something similar applies to speech-act related adverbials such as eerlijk gezegdhonestly speaking in (223). Because they comment on the speech act as a whole, there is a strong tendency to place them in the sentence-initial position, but again they can also occur in the middle field of the clause.

It is not easy to determine more precisely the unmarked position of the domain speech-act related adverbials in the middle field of the clause: for instance, the examples in (224) show that they can be placed before or after the temporal clause adverbials. The judgments seem to vary from case to case and person to person, and both orders can be found on the internet.

An additional problem in determining the unmarked position of domain and speech-act related adverbials is that they often occur as parentheticals. This is especially clear for the speech-act adverbial eerlijk gezegd, as the examples in (225) show that it can also precede the first position of the sentence or be placed in clause-final position; the commas indicate an intonation break.

Similar problems arise for conjunctive adverbials such as echterhowever in (226), which can be used at different positions in the sentence. The possibilities seem to vary from case to case.

Because the word-order problems mentioned above have not yet been studied in detail, it seems premature to speculate about the exact unmarked position of these adverbials: we can only conclude that they are relatively high in the linear hierarchy in (221).