On two types of adverbial clauses allowing root-phenomena

Peripheral adverbial clauses show many differences from central adverbial clauses, one being that they allow certain root-phenomena, whereas central adverbial clauses do not allow any. A third class of adverbial clauses has to be distinguished, which in German contains continuative w-relatives and free dass-clauses. These allow more root-phenomena than the peripherals and show other signs of greater independence. The paper argues that central and peripheral adverbial clauses are differently licensed syntactically, the former by the host’s verbal projection, the latter by Force in the host’s periphery. Moreover, adverbials of the third class are not syntactically licensed at all; they are orphans, being only semantically linked to their associated clause by a specific discourse relation.

• Affiliations: 1: ZAS, Berlin