Dutch adverbial morphology

Based on a particular aspect of the Ph.D. dissertation by Diepeveen (2012), this paper deals with the notion of adverbial morphology by presenting the case of Dutch. Existing accounts of the inventory of Dutch adverbial suffixes are rather diverse. I claim that the category of adverbial morphology is less clear-cut than traditionally assumed. Instead, I argue that the suffixes in question belong to a broader category that is arranged in a prototype manner: the suffixes at one end of the cline tend to form prototypical adjectives whereas the suffixes at the other end tend to form prototypical adverbs – with a transitional zone in between. This account leads to the conclusion that the inventory of Dutch ‘adverbial suffixes’ proper is much smaller than previously assumed.

• Affiliations: 1: FU Berlin