Adverb Diachronics Question

[dhok]

There are numerous recorded cases of languages losing at least some of their adverbs and using the unmarked adjective in their place- cf. some colloquial English "I did good", and I believe this happened to German. Are there any cases of it going the other way, where the adjective(s) was lost and the corresponding adverb(s) took their place?

[jal]

There are numerous recorded cases of languages losing at least some of their adverbs and using the unmarked adjective in their place- cf. some colloquial English "I did good", and I believe this happened to German. Are there any cases of it going the other way, where the adjective(s) was lost and the corresponding adverb(s) took their place?

The development of special adverbial forms with -ly in English is relatively recent. German (and other Germanic languages including Old English) just never morphologically marked adverbs, making them look a lot like adjectives (although in German, with its rather heavy declensions, does all kinds of nasty stuff to the adjectival forms making them not quite the same as their adverbial counterparts).

So it'd be interesting to see what "numerous recorded cases" you are referring to, as I can't think of a single one, right now.

Oh, and I think "I did good" is something different from "I did well", the former meaning "I did a good thing" ("good" being a secondary predicate).


JAL

[dhok]

I stand corrected! Where'd the -ly ending come from?

And no, you can't say "I did good" with good as an adverb in standard English, but you can, for example, in AAVE.

[Pole, the]

English -ly, -like, German -lich, come from PG *-līkaz (having the body of) and primarily formed adjectives.
Interestingly enough, the corresponding suffix in Romance langs is descendant of Latin mēns (mind).

In Slavic languages adverbs come from adjectives in neutrum, with grammatical ending -o, -e.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

English -ly, -like, German -lich, come from PG *-līkaz (having the body of) and primarily formed adjectives.
Interestingly enough, the corresponding suffix in Romance langs is descendant of Latin mēns (mind).

Not quite comparable, since the Romance -ment(e) has been forming adverbs since the beginning. Are there even any Romance adjectives in -ment(e)?

[Rui]

German also has a semi-productive (I think? Correct me if I'm wrong) suffix, -weise (which on its own means "in __ manner" or "in __ way") to form certain types of adverbs. I believe it's cognate with English -wise, which also forms adverbs. From what I can tell, they take verbs and nouns to form adverbs, rather than adjectives.

paarweise - "pair-wise" (in pairs), from "Paar" (pair)

You can also tack on -er to an adjective and then add -weise:

glücklicherweise - "fortunately", from "glücklich" (happy, lucky)

[Shihali]

In Slavic languages adverbs come from adjectives in neutrum, with grammatical ending -o, -e.

This reminds me of Standard Arabic, which except for a handful of inherent adverbs derives all its adverbs from adjectives in the masculine singular indefinite accusative -an. I vaguely recall something about Biblical Hebrew having very few adverbs as well.

I wonder if the cognate accusative evolved to compensate for the lack of adverbs?

[jal]

IWhere'd the -ly ending come from?

-ly (1) suffix forming adjectives from nouns and meaning "having qualities of, appropriate to, fitting;" irregularly descended from O.E. -lic, from P.Gmc. *-liko- (cf. O.Fris. -lik, Du. -lijk, O.H.G. -lih, Ger. -lich, O.N. -ligr), related to *likom- "appearance, form" (cf. O.E. lich "corpse, body;" see lich, which is a cognate; cf. also like (adj.), with which it is identical).

-ly (2) adverbial suffix, Middle English, from O.E. -lice, from P.Gmc. *-liko- (cf. O.Fris. -like, O.S. -liko, Du. -lijk, O.H.G. -licho, Ger. -lich, O.N. -liga, Goth. -leiko); see -ly (1). Cognate with lich, and identical with like (adj.). Weekley notes as "curious" that Germanic uses a word essentially meaning "body" for the adverbial formation, while Romanic uses one meaning "mind" (e.g. Fr. constamment from L. constanti mente). The modern English form emerged in late Middle English, probably from influence of O.N. -liga.

JAL

[linguoboy]

German also has a semi-productive (I think? Correct me if I'm wrong) suffix, -weise (which on its own means "in __ manner" or "in __ way") to form certain types of adverbs. I believe it's cognate with English -wise, which also forms adverbs. From what I can tell, they take verbs and nouns to form adverbs, rather than adjectives.

Not just productive, but--according to what I've read--increasingly frequent. (The same can be said of its English cognate, actually.)

You can also tack on -er to an adjective and then add -weise:

That -er is doubtless a fossilised oblique ending.

[FSI]

Romanian does it. All adverbs are morphologically just masculine adjectives. There are very rare cases where they end in "mente" and these are just recent borrowings from other Romance languages (most likely French); however, one can always use "mente" to form adverbs, but that adds and extra sarcasm on the speaker's part.

What I find very interesting is that there is the so called "element predicativ suplimentar" (~ supplementary predicative element) which morphologically is an adjective but it simultaneously determines a verb and a noun. For instance "fugea grăbită" is different from "fugea grăbit" - both would be translated into English as "she was running hastily", but the first one refers to the subject (she) and as well to the action (the running) and in this case the agreement with the subject takes precedence.

Is there any other language that does this ??