The morphology of –ly and the categorial status of ‘adverbs’ in English.

The author challenges the traditional assumption of derivational morphology which accords adverbial –ly derivational status and gives adverbs lexical category status on a par with nouns, verbs and adjectives. The author argues that adverbial –ly, unlike its adjectival counterpart, is inflectional and adverbs ending in –ly are rather to be regarded as inflected adjectives while those adverbs not containing –ly are uninflected adjectives; “adverbs cannot be categorially distinct from adjectives” (p. 342-343).