Principles of adverbial distribution in the lower clause

Adverbs like manner, domain, and measure adverbs generally occur in the lowest part of a clause, in a contiguous range of positions; some of them occur only within this zone, and for certain adverbs there are additional restrictions, such as to postverbal position. A semantically based theory of adverbial modification is outlined to account for these facts, in which the main factor in determining an adverbʹs possible positions is whether putting an adverb in those positions allows a well-formed interpretation. There are some syntactic effects, but they are limited, for example, to broadly formulated principles of linear order for head-initial vs. head-final languages, or the restriction on a few semantic rules to applying within some maximal projection.