Do adverbs have to directly describe the verb they relate to?

Question

I think the question is a bit vague, but unfortunately I'm not able to put it in precise linguistic terms. Let me explain what I'm referring to.

I am a native German speaker and I'm currently taking a Korean class. We were given pictures of a person doing normal day-to-day activities and were asked to describe it. One student said "Gildong is reading a newspaper". The teacher asked her how he was reading the newspaper, wanting her to use an adverb like "carefully" or "quickly". Since the context indicated that it was early in the morning, the student asked the teacher:

Was heißt "müde" auf Koreanisch? Also, "Er liest die Zeitung müde?"

At which point the teacher, a native Korean who learned German as a second language, asked her if that was even possible. How are you supposed to read a newspaper in a tired manner? Is it possible for the act of reading to be tired? He seemed relatively sure that this construction was not correct in German.

The native Germans in the class, including me, hadn't taken issue with the expression "Er liest die Zeitung müde", but none of us could say for sure if this was correct standard German. I do feel like "müde" isn't really a way to describe the action of reading, but rather the state that the actor is in.

So this is what I am asking here: Is "Er liest die Zeitung müde" valid standard German?

Answer 1

Er liest die Zeitung müde.

Diese Wortstellung ist nur möglich, wenn noch eine Ergänzung erfolgt, z.B. Er liest die Zeitung selten müde, und das Adverb besonders betont werden soll. So, wie der Satz oben steht, bedeutet er: Er liest die Zeitung so lange, bis sie Ermüdungserscheinungen bekommt. Korrekt müsste der Satz lauten:

Er liest müde die Zeitung.

Hier bezeichnet müde nicht eine Qualität der Handlung selbst, sondern eine Qualität des Zustandes, in dem die Handlung ausgeführt wird.