3.5.2. Sentence adverbials
Sentence adverbials affect the whole sentence and modify the proposition with respect to the mood or the speaker’s attitude. Some sentence adverbials may express epistemic modality, as it is the case of the adverbials possibly/can and maybe, shown in the examples below [MORPHOLOGY 3.2]. Since the adverbs are affecting the entire sentence the non-manual markers accompanying it (shoulders up, raised eyebrows, chin up, and backwards head tilt) spread over the entire sentence as well.
su, re, cu, ht-b
a) exam pass possibly/can.
‘Maybe he/she passes the exam.’
su, re, cu, ht-b
b) tomorrow rain maybe.
‘Maybe it rains tomorrow.’
Other sentence-adverbs may express aspectual information. In the examples below, the adverbs loads_of_times, always_the_same and fixed express iterative aspect [LEXICON 3.3.2].
a) ix movie ix1 watch loads_of_times.
‘I have watched this movie a thousand times!’
(recreated from Quer et al., 2005)
b) today morning ix1 wake_up time eight always_the_same.
‘Today I woke up at 8, as always.’
c) date thursday seminar fixed.
‘Seminar sessions are always held on Thursdays.’
Lastly, sentence adverbials may also express temporal information (yesterday, soon, later, etc). In the example below, the adverbial tomorrow indicates the time of the event expressed in the sentence [MORPHOLOGY 3.3.2].
su, re, cu, ht-b
tomorrow rain maybe.
‘Maybe it rains tomorrow.’