Per Aage Brandt                                                     

  

The so-called ‘satellite’ adverbs revolve around the verb and often compose with the verb as prefixes, at least in the Germanic languages. The Romance languages do not have satellite adverbs at all. To say “come in”, “go out”, French uses entrer, sortir. To say “go up”, “go down”, Spanish uses subir, bajar. However, English has a closed set of these very short and very frequent directional and locative (C4 & C6) adverbs: IN, OUT, UP, DOWN, and some less ‘primitive’: OFF, AWAY, HOME. And verbs take them as prefixes (income, outcome, uptake, download, offspin).

            The Scandinavian languages have the same set and have two forms, one directional (C4), the other locative (C6). The locative form adds a suffix (-E). Danish has the following: IND(E), UD(E); OP(PE), NED(E); HEN(NE) [moved horizontally and accidentally], FREM(ME) [forward], HJEM(ME) [home]; AF [off].

 

 

(1a) Kom ind til os. (Come in to us)

(1b) Han er inde i huset (He is in in house-the)

 

 

(2a) Lad os gå ud i aften. (Let us go out in evening[this])

(2b) Han er ude i byen. (He is out in town-the)

 

 

(3a) Hun fór op af stolen. (She started up of chair-the)

(3b) Hun er tidligt oppe. (She is early up)

 

 

(4a) De gik ned til stranden. (they went down to beach-the)

(4b) De boede nede ved stranden. (They lived down by beach-the)

 

 

(5a) Han kom aldrig hjem. (He came never home)

(5b) Han var aldrig hjemme. (He was never home)

 

 

The (a) series ofcourse has the adverb on the directive C4 branch in the verbal stemma, whereas the (b) series has the adverb on the locative C6 branch in the stemma. Thus:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This phenomenon is interesting, because non-derived adverbs are normally C5 trough 7. The core satellites are non-derived adverbs; not so in the case of IN (also preposition) and certainly not OFF (< OF), AWAY (< the noun WAY), HOME (< noun).

            The Danish locative predication (1b) seems to use something meaning IN twice:

This combination of an adverb and a preposition to form a joint schematic information (in this case: the locative is to be interpreted as containment) is very frequent.

            To think out of the box…

            Down by the riverside…

            Up on the east side of Manhattan…

            Up in the tree…

            Home on the ranch…

            Off of Broadway…

Up (like down) is often listed as a preposition: walk up the street, a mountain, row up the stream, up yours! These cases do not necessarily show prepositional function. They may alternatively be analysed as follows:

Such a combination of direction (C4) and location (C6) obtained by one word seems cognitively meaningful (to go somewhere and to do this by going through and thus being in some element); as an adverb, a satellite allows further complementation to happen.

 

 

Concluding idea:

There are many more things to observe about satellites, since they are so popular in modern English (even nominalized forms are normal: ups and downs).

            When an adverb moves up to C4 (from C6), it comes close to the verb and sometimes merges with it as indication of direction, first in some motion verb forms: incoming, outgoing, ingoing, outcome (noun), upcoming. And second, in verbal and nominal compositions of all sorts, where direction or location in space or time are of the essence: to outdo someone; to downplay something; a downbeat, an upbeat; offbeat. Time is out.   

 

 

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