Normally, a Chinese adverb follows the noun at the beginning of a clause but precedes the verb of the clause such as 天天 (ti¯anti¯an/ everyday) and 都 (d¯ou/ all) in the following example:
他天天都上班。
t¯a ti¯an-tian d¯ou sh`ang b¯an
He goes to work every day.
However, according to Li and Thompson’s finding, time, space, frequency, and evaluative adverbs are movable and can be placed to the beginning of a clause modifying the entire clause. For example, the adverb 天天 (ti¯anti¯an) in the previous sentence can be moved to the beginning of the sentence, reconstructing the sentence as shown below:
天天他都上班。
ti¯an-tian t¯a d¯ou sh`ang b¯an
Every day he goes to work.
However, not all adverbs are movable. Some mono-syllabic adverbs are not allowed to be placed in front of the sentence-initial noun. For example, 都 (d¯ou/ all) in the previous example cannot be moved to the beginning of the sentence. Since the adverb d¯ou (都) interacts with various pragmatic factors in the discourse, it cannot occur in the sentence-initial position.
Reference: Chinese: a linguistic introduction by Chao Fen Sun
