On Adverbial Government

The article deals with the issue of adverbial government. The linguistic literature related to the topic is briefly considered. Criteria of differentiation of adverbial and prepositional units formulated in modern research works are analyzed. Based on the analysis of the functioning of adverbs of manner in different spheres of communication, the author of the article personally compiled a dictionary, which includes about 6 000 units. The author allocated a small group of adverbs of manner (less than 1%) capable of adverbial government. Such adverbs, unlike prepositions, express qualitative characteristics of objects or phenomena and have more specific lexical meanings. The study does not take into account syntaxemes that are determining members of the sentence. The author notes that the ability of adverbs of manner to control the dependent form of the word is determined by the semantics of the adverb and by the grammatical properties of the words from which they derive. The positions of the actants can often be reflected in the dictionary definition of the adverbial lexeme. Synonymous adverbs usually govern the same prepositional case forms of nouns. Features of adverbial government are considered on the material of modern newspapers. An analysis of the material shows that most of these adverbial units characterize different actions, but some of them are used with verbs of being, state or quality. Adverbs that govern the dependent forms are used frequently and regularly in the titles of articles without forms of verbs they are grammatically dependent on. Under the influence of the communicative factors, the dependent form may precede the adverb. It is a consequence of active processes of modern syntax of the Russian language: the weakening of syntactic connections, the wide spread of parcelled constructions, the increased semantic capacity of statements. In headlines, journalists often use a language game based on the peculiarities of the meaning or sound of such language units. This is due to the desire of journalists to present the material as concise and at the same time expressive and original as possible. This tactic instantly draws the reader's attention to the material. Sometimes journalists ignore or violate grammar rules when they choose an adverb-dependent form of a word. Perhaps, this is due to the tendency to unify syntactic forms under the influence of semantic factors.

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