adverbialquantifier

An adverbial quantifier is a type of adverbial expression that serves to quantify an event, a proposition, or a property described in a clause. It functions as an adverbial modifier, indicating how often, to what extent, or to what degree something occurs or is the case. In many languages these expressions are built from a small set of quantifying words or phrases that can modify verbs, adjectives, or entire utterances.

Common examples include frequency adverbs such as always, usually, often, frequently, sometimes, rarely, and never; these specify how often an event occurs. Degree or extent adverbs such as almost, nearly, completely, totally, hardly, and scarcely indicate the scope or strength of an action or property. Words like enough function as adverbial quantifiers by signaling sufficiency, as in enough time or he did enough work. Some adverbs of quantity, such as much or little, can also serve adverbially to quantify the amount related to the verb or adjective.

Semantically, adverbial quantifiers affect the truth conditions or evaluation of the proposition by adding information about frequency, extent, or sufficiency. Syntactically, they usually occur adjacent to the verb or auxiliary in simple clauses, often before the main verb or after an auxiliary, as in She has often visited, He rarely eats out, or The plan is almost finished. Their placement and interpretation can interact with negation and aspect, shaping how precisely the event or state is characterized.

Cross-linguistically, many languages have analogous adverbial quantifiers, though their forms and ordering can differ. Distinctions arise between adverbial quantifiers and determiner-based quantifiers that modify nouns, underscoring a functional difference between modifying a proposition versus a noun phrase.