Multiple Adverbials

I shall now move on to look at sentences that contain several adverbial elements. I have just argued that verbs such as 'walk' are ambiguous between a stage and an individual level reading. Similarly, I argued that sentences such as 'Sirkku walks with a limp' and 'Sirkku walks to school' are ambiguous between a stage and an individual level reading. The sentence 'Sirkku walks on Wednesdays' only has an individual level reading, and the sentence 'Sirkku walks on Wednesday' only has a stage level reading. Let's see what happens when these adverbials are found in the same sentence:

 
(11)	a.  Sirkku kavele-e ontu-e-n koulu-un.
	    Sirkku-nom walk-present/3sg limp-2infinitive-instructive school-illative
	    Sirkku walks with a limp to school

	b.  Sirkku kavele-e ontu-e-n keskiviikko-i-sin.
	    Sirkku-nom walk-pres/3sg limp-2inf-instructive Wednesday-pl-adverb
	    Sirkku walks with a limp on Wednesdays

	c.  Sirkku kavele-e ontu-e-n keskiviikko-na
	    Sirkku-nom walk-present/3sg limp-2inf-instr Wednesday-essive
	    Sirkku walks with a limp on Wednesday

(11a) is ambiguous between a stage and an individual level reading. We can either be talking about a specific, temporary occasion on which Sirkku walks to school with a limp, or we can be talking about a generic, permanent property that Sirkku has: she is the one who habitually walks to school with a limp. So it is always true of Sirkku that she walks to school with a limp. But, although the first sentence as a whole may state an essential fact always holding of an individual named Sirkku, so that walking to school with a limp is Sirkku's permanent property or characteristic, it is not always true of Sirkku that she walks with a limp. So walking with a limp must be a stage level property. (11b) only receives an individual level reading, so that it is an essential property of Sirkku that she walks with a limp on Wednesdays. The sentence as a whole is individual level, but walking with a limp is again stage level.If Sirkku walks with a limp only on Wednesdays, then walking with a limp cannot be a permanent characteristic always holding of Sirkku. In (11c), the adverbial 'on Wednesday' expresses definite time, and the whole sentence receives a stage level reading: both the sentence as a whole and its subpart, the walking with a limp part, are interpreted as being stage level. So it would seem that if we combine two things which, on their own, can receive an individual level reading, when they are combined with each other, they can only receive a stage level reading, even though the sentence as a whole receives an individual level reading.