unfortunately located adverb

Mon Feb 26 23:57:55 UTC 2007

my friend Ned Deily reports the following:

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A sign in the door at the fairly posh Sutra Restaurant on the
Embarcadero:

"To Our Beloved Customers:
  We Will be exceptionally closed this evening
  Sunday February 25
  Enjoy the Oscars!"

(Despite the name, the restaurant is owned by the people who run
Plouf, among other properties, and some of the front office staff and
waiters appear to be French.)
-----

"Exceptionally, we will be closed this evening" or "We exceptionally
will be closed this evening" or "We will exceptionally be closed this
evening" would work, though they're a bit awkward.  but you just
can't move the sentence adverbial all the way down into the lowest
VP, even when no ambiguity would result:
   *We will be exceptionally singing on Saturday rather than Sunday
this week.

so this location for the adverb was doomed from the start.  and then
it gets interpreted as modifying "closed" ('closed to an exceptional
degree').

arnold

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