Sentence adverbs and theories of secondary meaning: Non-at-issueness and its problems

This paper poses three challenges that any account for sentence adverbs has to account for, the answer problem, the projection problem, and the commitment problem. These challenges are used to evaluate the basic working mechanisms of three types of existing accounts, i.e. unidimensional, multidimensional and illocutionary accounts, concluding that only a hybrid account can deal with these problems collectively. Then, a such account building on a unidimensional semantics, where multidimensionality only arises in certain contexts is sketched out, using the notion of propositional discourse referents. Finally, the findings are used for a basic taxonomy of non-at-issue meanings.