Review of adverb category in Spanish

Abstract

Among all word classes, the adverb is the worst defined and studied grammatical category. All grammarians accept that this category includes very heterogeneous elements, which come from very different origins and have very different functions. There is thus an urgent need to review this grammatical category. With this work, I intend to find an answer to the following questions: How the grammatical theory on the adverb has been developed? Which have been the mistakes of the grammatical tradition by producing a theory on the adverb? What should we actually understand by an adverb? How can we order, in a proper and reasonable way, the elements which are presently grouped in the so called «adverb» category? And finally, is the grammatical theory on the adverb also applicable to adverbial phrases? The result is a rearrangement of the words which have been considered as adverbs by the grammatical tradition so far.