Eckhard Bick - VISL

An important distinction with regard to syntactic function is about what kind of
constituent a complementiser adverb introduces, i.e. which syntactic form it is part of.
In traditional grammar this distinction would determine what word class a
complementiser adverb is assigned, - that of conjunction (where it heads a finite
subclause: venha quando quiser), or that of preposition (where it links to a noun phrase:
grande como um urso). This way, only the interrogative members of the class need to be
recognised as adverbs 187 , since they can appear at main clause constituents or as group
level modifiers. However, since a "conjunctional" adverb like 'como' in 'não sei como
funciona' is morphologically indistinguishable from prepositional comparative 'como' or
the "pure" adverbial variant in an interrogative sentence like 'como se chama?', I retain
the morphological umbrella class of adverb in my system, using secondary tags,
(conjunctional use) and (prepositional use) to make the syntactic distinction.
The various semantico-syntactic distinctions discussed above are all registered as
pontentialities in the lexicon, their disambiguation presently being carried out at four
different levels of the parser:
Word class disambiguation relative vs. interrogative
level
Mapping level adverbial argument @ADV
comparative function @KOMPA function
complementiser @# function
Valency instantiationn level prepositional vs. conjunctional function
Syntactically the difference between what I call relative and interrogative use of adverbs
is that relative use is restricted to the complementiser position of typically non-nominal
finite subclauses or averbal subclauses, while interrogative use does occur at main
clause (@ADV, @ADVL) and group level (@>A), as well as in the complementiser
position of typically nominal subclause (e.g. @#FS-