Re: Question for English Speakers about Secondary Predicates (also posted on ZBB)

> In all your examples, what you call the secondary predicate seems to
> function as an adverb, the manner of the action. Even the odd sentence
> "The man chased the fox brown" seems to say that the man chased the
> fox so that it turned brown. Is it common amongst English grammarians
> to call adverbs specifying the manner of the action "secondary
> predicates"?
>
I don't know about ALL English grammarians, but certainly many linguists
recognise the difference between adverbs and secondary predicates. In
"Secondary Predicates and Adverbial Modification" a typology is
proposed: a Secondary Predicate Construction is one that is primarily
orientated towards one participant in a situation (he ate the meat raw
-> meat was raw), whereas an Adverbial Construction is one that is
orientated more towards the event itself. Not all languages have two
distinct constructions for these (German for example does not mark the
difference)... in the book I mentioned, a typology is proposed of most
typical notions expressed by Secondary Predicate Constructions (if a
language has one) vs notions most typically adverbial in nature, and the
authors express the view that these constructions may be in competition
for expressing some meanings. For example, expressions of manner can be
considered either event orientated or actor orientated, and languages
may encode them with either a construction that is primarily a Secondary
Predicate Construction or with an Adverbial Construction. Many
Australian languages are good examples of languages where manner is
generally expressed by Secondary Predicates which agree in case and
other features with their agentive controller. I have a  paper in .doc
format I found some time ago which is by the same people and makes many
of the same points as the book, but I'm unable to find it online now...
if you want me to I will email it to you so you can read it.

> Makes me curious.
>
> LEF
>

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