ABSTRACT
Action-ascribing sentences are susceptible of adverbial modification of such a kind that a proposition expressed by a sentence so modified entails any proposition obtained from it merely by shearing away some or all of the modifiers. Different theories are current which purport to explain our grasp of the structure of these entailments. In general there is a contrast between a theory, like Professor Davidson’s,1 which explains these relationships by reference to well-understood logical structures represented as underlying the surface forms of action-ascribing sentences, and any theory which finds an explanation closer to the surface of ordinary language by recognizing a more complicated basic syntax than a Davidsonian theorist is prepared to allow for. A theory of the second sort might deserve the name of an ‘Adverbial Theory’. Indeed I shall pretend that we have to do with some particular theory of this sort, which I shall call the Adverbial Account, to be set over against the Davidsonian Account.
