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§6 Adverbs

Adverbs are words that are neither nouns, adjectives nor verbs but that give information about degree, manner, time, location, may express an epistemic stance or otherwise qualify an adjective, another adverb, a verb, a determiner, a clause, a postposition or a whole phrase. As such, adverbs are difficult to properly and succinctly define and have a wide variety of functions and forms. Many postpositions may also function as adverbs should they not be found with a head noun. While many adverbs in Pine end in -set, there are many other less well-defined types of adverbs. Like adjectives, many adverbs can be declined according to degrees of comparison, but not all can. This section aims at giving an overview of the most common types of adverbs, how they function and how they may be declined to gain some further grammatical function.

Generally speaking, adverbs tend to precede whatever they describe. In formal language, adverbs describing verbs tend to follow verbs directly as Pine strongly favours verbs being in initial position, but adverbs, especially adverbs of degree, are still commonly found directly preceding verbs.

§6.1 Adverbs & Their Morphosyntactic Role

The main function of adverbs is very similar to that of adjectives, but they generally give information on the manner, time, location or the epistemy of verbs or other adjectives. Many adverbs are derived from adjectives. For example, kįasƛi ‘quick’ can be made into an adverb, kįasƛet ‘quickly’ to describe the manner in which a verb occurs, gaminna kįasƛet ‘I walk quickly’. Such adverbs are called adverbs of manner. Other adverbs are not derived, such as ari ‘very, much’, which describes the degree of either an adjective, ari hikva ‘very good’, an adverb, ari kįasƛet ‘very quickly’, a verb, ari sġunnįan ‘s/he snores a lot’ or even a noun if it can be graded, for example ari ƛunnubbu ‘a very scrawny person’, as ƛunnubbu ‘a scrawny person’ can be thought of as existing in various degrees. One could not use the adverb ari in front of a noun which cannot be thought of as having various degrees, such as *ari mavvu ‘very meat’. As such, the adverb ari functions to indicate degree, regardless of the following category, whether it be a noun, an adjective, a verb or an adverb. Such adverbs are called degree adverbs. Other adverbs function to add information about the time of an action, and are generally only compatible with verbs, for example heyt ‘at night’ or nįottset ‘for a long time’. Such adverbs are called temporal adverbs. Yet other adverbs give information about the location of an event, and like temporal adverbs are generally restricted to verbs, such as deįįa ‘here’, oįįủn ‘from over there’ or nůga ‘close by’ and these are called locative adverbs. Evaluative adverbs give epistemic information, for example aiset ‘clearly’, ỉnton ‘possibly’, inttivuttattit ‘possibly’, bįelkkivuttattit ‘probably’ or biukset ‘apparently’ , or about the stance or attitude of the speaker towards an action, such as tsabbattit ‘hopefully’, beyƛisset ‘importantly’, or may provide some sort of commentary, such as halukkoset ‘normally’ or kįusset ‘generally’. A more difficult group of adverbs are postpositional adverbs, which function as postposition when they are found with a head noun, for example ai gakka ‘by it, next to it’, but without a head noun they function as adverbs, tṇenat gakka ‘they sit in a circle’. Adverbs which function to modify a clause into an interrogative clause are called interrogative adverbs and they include kamỉn ‘why’, kallįet~kaddan ‘when, at what time’, kottset ‘how long’ and kỉset ‘how’. Conjunctive adverbs function to modify a clause’s relation to another clause, and as such are commonly found in hyponomous clauses, for example aỉn ‘therefore’, peůha ‘otherwise’ or adden ‘anyway’.

Pine thus distinguishes seven main categories of adverbs, which will be individually described below:

adverbs of manner

degree adverbs

temporal adverbs

locative adverbs

evaluative adverbs

interrogative adverbs

conjunctive adverbs

§6.2 Degrees of Comparison of Adverbs

Adverbs have comparative and superlative forms that differ from that of adjectives. Adverbs in -set have set comparative forms in -kkoset/-kkůset and -kkusin/-kkysin in the equative, and superlative forms in -llusit/-llysit, although in non-formal registers, these are found as -llut/-llyt. Other adverbs which do not end in -set are found with the infix -ttut/-ttyt in the comparative and -ƛƛut/-ƛƛyt in the superlative. The forms -ttut/-ttyt and -ƛƛut/-ƛƛyt as well as -kkusin/-kkysin are generally only found following tense vowels. For example, raugvot ‘hard’ has the comparative form raugvuttut ‘harder’, the superlative form raugvuƛƛut ‘hardest’ and mỉraugvuttusin ‘as hard’, and nůgůt ‘close (movement to)’ has the comparative form nůgyttyt~nygyttyt ‘closer (movement to)’ and the superlative form nůgyƛƛyt~nygyƛƛyt ‘closest (movement to)’.

As with adjectives, comparatives are followed by va to introduce that to which something is being compared, for sample nįukkut va tsami ‘more than you’, which has a negative form in vu. To emphasise comparatives, ỏ can be used to mean ‘even’, as in ỏ nįukkut ‘even more’, as well as vovun ‘much’, ihhủt~ehhủt ‘much (more common with adverbs of quantity than quality)’ or hykkůt~hůkkyt ‘much’.

§6.2.1 Irregular Adverbs

A number of adverbs have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative. Some of these adverbs would hardly be used in English, such as iṡƛusit ‘oldliest’, but Pine uses them for example with certain verbs of perception such as utṇ- ‘appear, seem’, as in iṡƛusit ḥutṇami mi na-t ni ‘that one seems oldest’, although the same can be used with adjectives in the essive, iṡelyts ḥutṇami mi na-t ni ‘that one seems oldest’.

The form iṡṡyt ‘older, more old(ly)’ also has the meaning of ‘formerly’. The forms ṃuoįįo- and ṃủ- both mean ‘warm(ly), hot(ly)’ but only ṃủ- has the figurative meaning of ‘warm(ly), kind(ly)’, and the same is true for tṡey- and tṡůi- ‘cold(ly)’, with tṡůi- having a more figurative meaning. Likewise, lỏ- and lui- both mean ‘slow(ly)’ but only forms in lui- also mean ‘calmly, peacefully, lazily, without hurrying’. The forms uoįįo- and uįo- both mean ‘correct(ly), right(ly)’ but forms in uįo- also refer to ‘morally correct(ly), right(ly)’. Finally, the adverb ikkủ and its comparative and superlative forms ikkoset, iksit or ittut and illusit or iƛƛut also mean ‘properly’ or ‘undeniably’, but ikkủ ‘well’ is more common than hisket in modern Pine. The forms husset and tṡutġit or tṡủkkit both mean ‘badly, poorly’ but tṡutġit~tṡủkkit implies that it is not how it should be or occurs in such a way that the result is not good, while husset is more neutral in meaning.

§6.3 Adverbs of Manner

Adverbs of manner form one of the eight types of adverbs found in Pine. They most commonly give information about the manner in which a verb occurs but may also be found modifying adjectives. Most adverbs of manner can be compared. The prototypical formant for adverbs of manner, many of which are derived from adjectives, is the ending -set. For example, the adjective pitṡku ‘quiet’ can regularly be made into an adverb by adding -set (which causes relaxation of any word-final vowel) to yield pitṡkoset ‘quietly’, which instead of qualifying a noun can now describe the manner in which an action occurs, for example: pitṡkoset gilůelvi ‘s/he left quietly’. Many adverbs of manner do not contain the ending -set, and may instead be formed by using the plural sematic of a noun, for example niṡpukkit ‘in secret’, sometimes using the comitative as in rvaugvungit ‘with strength, confidently’ as in leybmi rvaugvungit ‘s/he spoke with strength’. This does not always preclude -set forms from existing, and raykveset does exist but means ‘strongly/hard’, as in ƛiugvet raykveset ‘s/he hit her/him strongly/hard’.

§6.3.1 Adverbs of Manner in -set

Adverbs of manner in -set are regularly derived from adjectives. Virtually any adjective can be made into an adverb of manner this way. A small number of -set adverbs are irregularly derived from their base adjective, for example kįasƛi ‘quick’ ⟫ kįasƛet ‘quickly’, hikva ‘good’ ⟫ (h)isket or ikkủ ‘well’, huvva ‘bad’ ⟫ husset ‘badly’ and ủa ‘pretty, beautiful’ ⟫ ủsset ‘beautifully’. Adverbs in -set can also be derived from verbs, in which case the ending is generally -attit or -assit~-asset as in ṛilgattit ‘brightly’ from ṛilg- ‘shine, be bright’. Many verbs can also form an adverbial form by the ending -(v)uttit/-(v)attit, where the -v- versioner only appears as gemination but never as -v-. Below is a list of some common adverbs of manner in -set.

Another important group of adverbs of manner in -set are derived from demonstrative pronouns. The proximal and distal adverbs exist in two forms, one more emphatic and formal (deset, biset) and one more neutral (eset, iset) while the prerelative adverb oset only has one form. Each of these also has an alternative form made up of the dependent pronoun (or the third-person inanimate genitive ai in the case of the deictic pronouns) form followed by laggi ‘in such a way’ or laggut (in the plural, after comparative forms) which is the genitive form of the noun lakka ‘way’. It may instead be found in the comitative as lagven or laggein in the plural. Some people also include an independent pronoun following laggi or laggut, for example mitṇut laggut or mitṇut laggut ỉ – both are acceptable.

§6.3.2 Other Adverbs of Manner

Although the majority of adverbs of manner are regularly derived from adjectives, verbs, postpositions or even nouns and contain the adverbial formant -set, other adverbs of manner are also found. A large number of these adverbs of manner have corresponding adverbs in -set from the same root but may have a slightly different nuance. A number of such common pairs are given below, as well as adjectives of manner that do not contain the formant -set. In such pairs, forms in -set tend to me more literal while other forms may be slightly more removed from the meaning of the base word. Commonly, the sematic plural is found, but with certain adjective formants, the sematic singular or the comitative singular is most common, for example adjectives in -erit/-ulit/-ylit often have regular adverbial forms in -ir/-ul/-yl, and adjectives in -iġġami/-uġġami can productively form adverbs with the comitative, -eġikkut/-oġukkit. For example, the adjective ṃiġta means both ‘loud’ or ‘heavy’, and the -set form ṁiġtoset means ‘loudly’ or ‘heavily’, while ṃỉktit means ‘heavily, strongly’ as in ṃỉktit issiritsukkami ‘it is heavily/strongly criticised’. The adjective udnuruġġami means ‘spineless, cowardly, baseless’ and its adverbial form is most commonly udnuroġukkit ‘baselessly, cowardly, spinelessly’.

§6.3.2.1 Common Pairs of Adverbs of Manner

§6.3.2.2 Other Adverbs of Manner

A number of adverbs of manner lack the -set adverb formant and are not found in pairs with -set adverbs of manner. A number of those are made up of two similar words, usually with opposing polarity, for example from skaukun ‘left ski’ one gets the adverb skaykyn skaukun ‘wrong, not the way things are supposed to be’. This sort of contrapolar reduplication is a way to form various adverbs in Pine.

§6.4 Degree Adverbs

Degree adverbs are words that give additional information about the degree of an adjective, a gradable noun or in some cases verbs. Some degree adverbs are single words, others are part of the verb, such as adverbial initials, while other adverbs require more elements, such as the combination of the negative and the adverbial initial ůḷḷ(ů)- to convey the idea that an action bearly happened, as in: ůḷḷůnekkyt nukket ‘I bearly saw it’. Moreover, degree adverbs can be separated into two categories: absolute adverbs, which cannot be compared, and comparable adverbs.

§6.4.1 Absolute Degree Adverbs

Absolute degree adverbs cannot semantically or in any meaningful way be compared – they lack any comparative or superlative declensions. They include both adverbs of quantity and quality.

hu--kka-t c--i-a-ga-t-tami ki-kfu-t

§6.4.2 Comparable Degree Adverbs

Comparable degree adverbs are adverbs which have a property which can be found in the comparative or superlative forms. Degree adverbs include both quality, as in ari hikva ‘very good’ and quantity, ƛỉdnan įayt ‘s/he speaks a lot’. The degree adverbs nįukkut and ninut have special interrogative forms in kauva, kaunnut respectively. The adverb biṡ ‘a little’ usually only precedes other adverbs, for example biṡ ninut ‘a little, a tiny bit (lit. a little little)’

§6.5 Temporal Adverbs

Temporal adverbs give information about the time when something is or occurs. They are most commonly found with verbs and may be found clause initially.

§6.5.1 Temporal Adverbs From Nouns

Temporal adverbs derived from nouns denoting times of the day and longer periods of time are given below. Often times, specific times are found in a special form of the asematic noun in -t, for example hauddot ‘this morning’ (from haudda ‘morning’), heyt ‘tonight’ (from hey ‘night’), but kekvot ‘today’ (from keggi ‘day’) while non-specific times or adverbs denoting regular occurrences are found in the sematic plural or in a form similar to the sematic plural (occasionally differing from the sematic plural in one way or another, either with a lack of apophony, different apophony than in the regularly declined noun or with some shorter form of the sematic), such as hautut ‘in the morning(s)’ (cf. the sematic plural haytyt ‘mornings’), hevvyt ‘at night’, keukvon ‘during the day’, ủnnįot ‘in the evening’ (cf. the sematic plural vůennįyt). Many such adverbs can be found with the initial si-/sis- that refer to some time tomorrow and gi-/geg- referring to some time yesterday, for example sġeyt ‘tomorrow night’ and gikekvot ‘yesterday’. The hyponomous verbal forms lunnen ‘last, preceding, having past’ and mintten ‘coming, following’ serve a similar purpose and are followed by the sematic singular, for example lunnen hevvi ‘last night, the previous night’ and mintten keukvon ‘the next day’. The adverb forming suffix -deddet indicates that something occurs every time, for exemple keggededdet ‘daily, every day’ or gassededdet ‘monthly, every month’.

§6.5.2 Other Temporal Adverbs

Other temporal adverbs are given below. Some are ultimately derived from nouns, such as dalįut ‘sometimes’ from dallįi ‘time’, but they are considered separately from temporal adverbs derived from nouns of time. The common temporal adverbs diġi(-t) or commonly diġi-t di~da and (m)eġo-t~(m)eġu-t (commonly found with da or di) are used as common when linking two utterances, either logically or temporally, and it’s also used as a universal hesitation filler word. It literally means ‘subsequently, after that, then (probably, apparently)’.

Certain temporal adverbs can instead appear as in a comparative sematic form in -e/-o/-ů when being compared to something, either derived directly from its adverbial form of from a derived comparative form not normally or rarely used otherwise. For example, giḷḷit ‘early’ has a special adjectival comparative form giḷḷikkyt ‘earlier’, which is then found as giḷḷikků~giḷḷikkysyt when comparing something, for example giḷḷikkysyt mitṇut niṡkegi nỉ ‘more people than earlier, than previously’. Some speakers instead use giḷḷimyt. This is also true of halukkoset ‘normally’, which appears as halukkumit or halum(m)it, as in halum(m)it~halukkumit nįustut ‘more than normally’, or mỉkset which becomes mỉkse, as in mỉkse mitṇoįįu ‘more often than once’.

siminduṡ kįasƛet

simint-uc kjasTi-t

[sɪˈmɪnːdʊʃ ˈcasːt͡ɬɛt]

si-Ø-mind-uṡ kįasƛ=et

cis-3a.ag-come-nloc.fut quickly

‘s/he will come in shortly/quickly’

na į-ottsun ke tsamma deįįa?

na j_u-c-cun ki- c-amma t-i-jja

[nɑ ˈjɔt͡s:ʊn kɛ t͡samːɑ ˈdɛjːɑ]

na į–ottsun ke ts-aθ-va de=įįa

interr still interr 2.ag-cop-loc.prs here.iness

‘are you still here?’

§6.5.3 Complex Temporal Adverbs

Complex temporal adverbs are postpositional phrases that have a temporal adverbal function. They are commonly formed of an adjective and a postpositional word, such as dallįi ‘time’. The adjective, such as nįoddis ‘long’ and tsittsa ‘short’ are either found in the same case as the postposition or in the asematic, although dallįein only uses the genitive or asematic form of the adjective. The postpositional forms of dallįi can be left out if the adjective is declined for case – nįottot dảlįet, nįotta dảlįet or simple nįottot are all equally possible and all mean ‘(for a) long (time)’.

§6.6 Locative & Temporal Adverbs

Locative adverbs include adverbs of deixis, such as deįįa ‘here’ and nįiįįỉn ‘from there’, cardinal orientation adverbs, such as nįillon ‘in the north, up north’, and postpositional locative adverbs such as sisset ‘up’ and gegget ‘down’. Temporal adverbs also exist, such as eįįu ‘at this time’, iįįu ‘at that time’ and oįįu ‘at that time, at such a time’.

§6.6.1 Spatial Deixis of Locative Adverbs

Spatial deictic adverbs give information about the location of an argument in relation to a reference point. Pine distinguishes three levels of deixis: the proximal, the medial and the distal-anaphoric deixis. Proximal deixis refers to a location close to the speaker while medial refers to a location either close to the addressee or further away. The third level of deixis has two functions. It can indicate distal spatial deixis, which refers to a location not visible or further away from the speaker. It can also function to indicate anaphoric deixis, which refers to a location previously mentioned, or alternatively as a prerelative location, which will be further described later in the statement.

The basic spatial deictic adverbs are given below. Such adverbs are found in the four locative cases, with the comitative functioning as a perlative, indicating movement along, by, through or across a location, as well as a radius or area (of a surface), especially for example when referring to the body, as in pakkami deįįen ‘it hurts here (pointing to an area of the body)’. They exist in specific (deįįa ‘here, right here’), general (dessit ‘around here, in this general area’), comparative (dekkumit ‘closer here’) and comparative general (dekkusut ‘closer around here’) and moderative forms (deummit ‘a little closer here’) and moderative general forms (deubmusut ‘a little closer around here’). General locative adverbs and their corresponding interrogative forms also mean ‘in this/that direction’, for example: gimỉkvi nįiįįot ‘s/he went that way’.

Proximal and medial adverbs have alternative forms without the initial consonant (eįįa, iįįa) which are more common in formal and poetic language, but in colloquial registers they have a more abstract meaning, for example: eset siḷḷuttat eįįa ḥủva ‘one does not do this here (not necessarily in this place)’, eįįa nả na ‘here it is, here it comes’, iįįỉn temmami ‘it stems from there (not necessarily an actual physical location). Additionally, proximal forms have forms in de- or įe-, both of which are equally acceptable. Specific adverbs tend to be more commonly found with įe- but general and comparative forms are more commonly found with de-. For some speakers, the distinction between de- and įe- forms is one of precision or confidence, with de- being seen as more precise or more deliberate in delivery.

Specific and general inessive adverbs are sometimes found with alternative endings, namely the non-locative inessive -mmut, the illative plural -ddit and the inessive plural -ssit. The non-locative forms emmut/immut/ommut have a more literal connotation, or a very limited radius (‘right here/there’). The same is true for the illative plural forms eddit/iddit/oddit, which can be better translated as ‘to right here/there’. In comparative and moderative adverbs, the singular form is the ‘normal’ form and the plural forms ekkusut/ikkusut/okkusut are more limited im radius (‘closer right here/there’). The same is true of the illative forms ekkuttut/ikkuttut/okkuttut. The elative does not traditionally distinguish this difference between a general and more restricted area.

§6.6.2 Cardinal Orientation Adverbs

Cardinal orientation adverbs have unusual forms that are derived from the plural and singular locative cases, with the elative usually found as a shortened version of the plural ending (nįilun ‘from the north’ instead of nįỉlungit, which also exists, or alternatively nįỉlủn). These unusual case endings are are found directly onto the asematic stem. A secondary set of cardinal orientation adverbs exist, which are not irregular and follow the normal declension of each noun. The regular forms of these nouns have specific meanings. Most commonly, the illative and elative are used and indicate either direction or spacial orientation or provenance, for example with winds, such that nįỉllot means ‘north-facing, northward’ and goatṡkỉn means ‘coming from the south (wind, river, light)’. Also given below are the adjectives derived from cardinal orientation adverbs as well as corresponding winds.

§6.6.2.1 Other Orientation Adverbs

Pine has other orientation adverbs related to often natural topography.

§6.6.3 Postpositional Locative Adverbs

Postpositional locative adverbs are words that indication location that act as adverbs when they are not found with a noun, but act as postpositions when following a noun in the sematic case. For example, sissen ‘up’ can be used as an adverb, as in givvin sissen ‘I climbed up’ or as a postposition, as in geggimivvin ṇůeyki sissen ‘I climbed up into the tree’. Usually, when such adverbs function as postpositions, the verb will require the motion preverb i(m)-. Postpositional locative adverbs are generally not found as postpositions when the comparative or superlative. Many such adverbs distinguish static location and dynamic location (movement to, from, along).