Silent Nominal Heads in Manner Adverbials

Abstract

In this study we will start from a suggestion taken from Kayne’s proposal (2016) about silent heads, in order to analyse the structure of some specific adverbial PPs in different languages. It will be argued that behind certain manner constructions consisting of a preposition plus an adjective may lie a full nominal phrase, whose head is generally – but not exclusively – silent. This study will show that there is a cross-linguistic tendency to create manner expressions using a nominal head meaning ‘way’ or ‘manner’, and also that this head may change diachronically, either becoming silent to form idiomatic expressions, or being reanalysed and grammaticalised into a productive adverbial suffix.