The relative surface order of multiple restrictive adjuncts generally
has no effect on their interpretation. The relative semantic scope of
multiple operator adjuncts, on the other hand, sometimes does and
sometimes does not depend on their relative surface order.
Since the order of interpretation of operator
adjuncts can affect the overall interpretation of a sentence, it is
important to account for interpretation orders which vary from
straight surface order, in addition to accounting for interpretation
orders which are dependent on surface order.
We saw in d47 that the surface order of restrictive adjuncts in some cases has no effect on their interpretation. The sentences in d46 showed, on the other hand, that relative surface order can influence the interpretation of the sentence. Contrasting d46 with d52 indicates that the content of the multiple adverbials can also influence their relative interpretation. Sentences (3.61a) and (3.66a) have the same semantics despite their differences in surface order. Sentence (3.66b) is ungrammatical because the combination dictated by the surface order is temporally impossible -- it is not possible to repeat an event which itself lasts twenty years twice within one day.
John jogged twice a day for twenty minutes. *John jogged for twenty years twice a day.
Clearly there are very complex constraints governing both the semantic composition and the relative surface order of multiple adverbials. A treatment of adjuncts must therefore provide a mechanism for the application of these constraints.