The study of adverbial subordination has always been an inescapable
topic present in all grammars. Nevertheless, as will be shown in
the first section of this paper, it could be claimed that traditional approaches,
as well as other approaches that continue on the same line,
have not succeeded in providing a clear delimitation of the concept of
adverbial subordination and, even more, a complete and logical taxonomy
of this type of constructions. The aim of this article is, therefore,
to present a new approach to the study of adverbial clauses that
has been carried out within the framework of the Functional Grammar
Theory. In dealing with the semantic parameters used in this model for
the classification of adverbial clauses, special attention will be paid to
the application of the hierarchical structure of the clause to the description
of this type of constructions.
