A hierarquia universal dos advérbios no espanhol do Chile

Abstract

Based on Cinque’s (1999) proposal that adverbial phrases (AdvPs) are specifiers of hierarchically ordered functional categories—and not simple adjunctions as traditionally stated—, this research aims to verify whether Cinque’s hierarchy of adverbs applies to Chilean Spanish. In order to do so we turn to precedence-and-transitivity tests featuring two adverbs from different categories, thus determining their relative order. We have found some interesting data exhibiting apparent violations of the hierarchy. These mere apparent violations can nonetheless illuminate some of the different phenomena that determine the final sentence order, without necessarily refuting the hierarchy. We conclude that these cases are not counterexamples to the hierarchy, which seems to apply to the studied variety of Spanish concerning adverbs.