Els Adverbis de lloc intransitius i la formació de construccions amb adverbis posposats

Intransitive locative adverbs are part of an array of adverbs which may be characterized
as descriptive, since they mark distinctions by reference to different spatial axis, and nominals,
since they share properties with nouns. As a rule, intransitive adverbs can not select a complement
due to the fact that they are originated by the incorporation of a nominal element to a
directional preposition (i.e. AD VALLEM > avall), but they can appear in postposition with respect
to a bare noun in constructions with a directional sense equivalent to ?the place through
which? (i.e. riu avall) or implying physical orientation (i.e. boca avall). A detailed analysis of
the examples extracted from our corpus allows the inference that these constructions derive
from more complex constructions introduced by a preposition (i.e. pel riu avall and de cara
avall). In accordance to the proposed analysis, the change was caused by the omission of the
phonological features of the preposition and the incorporation of the noun to the empty prepositional head. Moreover, these processes were possible since the noun had an additional
meaning matching the path or the orientation meaning transmitted by the omitted preposition and
since this meaning was reinforced by the predication of the directional adverb. The formation
of the preposition cap from the noun cap is another clear indicator of the evolutionary process
of the elements involved in these constructions.