§ 5. Among the various types of adverbs, those formed from adjectives by means of the suffix -ly occupy the most representative place and pose a special problem.

The problem is introduced by the very regularity of their deriva­tion, the rule of which can be formulated quite simply: each evalua­tive (or, to keep to lexical tradition, qualitative) adjective has a par­allel adverb in -ly. E.g.: silent - silently, slow - slowly, tolera­ble - tolerably, pious - piously, sufficient - sufficiently, tired - tiredly, explosive - explosively, etc.

This regularity of formation accompanied by the general qualita­tive character of semantics gave cause to A.I. Smirnitsky to advance the view that both sets of words belong to the same part of speech, the qualitative adverbs in -ly being in fact adjectives of specific com-binability [Смирницкий, 1959, 174-175].

The strong point of the adjectival interpretation of qualitative ad­verbs in -ly is the demonstration of the actual similarity between the two lexemic sets in their broader evaluative function, which fact pro­vides for the near-identity of the adjectival and adverbial grammatical categories of comparison. On the whole, however, the theory in question is hardly acceptable for the mere reason that derivative re­lations in general are not at all relations of lexico-grammatical iden­tity; for that matter, they are rather relations of non-identity, since they actually constitute a system of production of one type of lexical units from another type of lexical units. As for the types of units belonging to the same or different lexemic classes, this is a question of their actual status in the system of lexicon, i.e. in the lexemic paradigm ot nomination reflecting the fundamental correlations be­tween the lexemic sets of language (see Ch. IV, § 8). Since the En­glish lexicon does distinguish adjectives and adverbs; since adjectives are substantive-qualifying words in distinction to adverbs, which are non-substantive qualifying words; since, finally, adverbs in -ly do pre­serve this fundamental non-substantive-qualification character - there cannot be any question of their being "adjectives" in any rationally conceivable way. As for the regularity or irregularity of derivation, it is absolutely irrelevant to the identification of their class-lexemic na­ture.

Thus, the whole problem is not a problem of part-of-speech identity, it is a problem of inter-class connections, in particular, of inter-class systemic division of functions, and, certainly, of the correl­ative status of the compared units in the lexical paradigm of nomi­nation.

But worthy of attention is the relation of the adverbs in question to adverbs of other types and varieties, i.e. their intra-class correla­tions. As a matter of fact, the derivational features of other adverbs, in sharp contrast to the -ly-adverbs, are devoid of uniformity to such an extent that practically all of them fall into a multitude of minor non-productive derivational groups. Besides, the bulk of notional qualitative adverbs of other than -ly-derivation have -ly-correlatives (both of similar and dissimilar meanings and connotations). These facts cannot but show that adverbs in -ly should be looked upon as the standard type of the English adverb as a whole.