Additives, Exclusives, and Particularizers

Additives "add" two or more items together, emphasizing that they are all to be considered equal:

[1] Lynn's prewar success had been as a light historical novelist; he employed similar fanciful ideas in his war novels [...] Joseph Hocking's war novels are also dominated by romance and adventure [W2A-009-40ff]

[2] German firms have an existing advantage as a greater number of their managers have technical or engineering degrees. Japanese managers, too, have technical qualifications of a high order. [W2A-011-51ff]

In [1], the adverb also points to the similarities between the war novels of Lynn and those of Hocking. In [2], the adverb too functions in a similar way, emphasizing the fact that the qualifications of Japanese managers are similar to those of German managers.

In contrast with additives, EXCLUSIVE adverbs focus attention on what follows them, to the exclusion of all other possibilities:

[3] It's just a question of how we organise it [S1B-075-68]

[4] The federal convention [...] comes together solely for the purpose of electing the president [S2B-021-99]

In [3], just excludes all other potential questions from consideration, while in [4], solely points out the fact that the federal convention has no other function apart from electing the president. Other exclusives include alone, exactly, merely, and simply.

PARTICULARIZERS also focus attention on what follows them, but they do not exclude other possibilities:

[5] The pastoralists are particularly found in Africa [S2A-047-3]

[6] Now this book is mostly about what they call modulation [S1A-045-167]

In [5], it is implied that Africa is not the only place where pastoralists live. While most of them live there, some of them live elsewhere. Sentence [6] implies that most of the book is about modulation, though it deals with other, unspecified topics as well.

Other particularizers include largely, mainly, primarily, and predominantly.

6.5 Wh- Adverbs

A special subclass of adverbs includes a set of words beginning with wh-. The most common are when, where, and why, though the set also includes whence, whereby, wherein, and whereupon. To this set we add the word how, and we refer to the whole set as WH- ADVERBS. Some members of the set can introduce an interrogative sentence:

When are you going to New York?
Where did you leave the car?
Why did he resign?
How did you become interested in theatre?

They can also introduce various types of clause:

This is the town where Shakespeare was born
I've no idea how it works

Sentence Adverbs

We conclude by looking at a set of adverbs which qualify a whole sentence, and not just a part of it. Consider the following:

Honestly, it doesn't matter

Here the sentence adverb honestly modifies the whole sentence, and it expresses the speaker's opinion about what is being said (When I say it doesn't matter, I am speaking honestly). Here are some more examples:

Clearly, he has no excuse for such behaviour
Frankly, I don't care about your problems
Unfortunately, no refunds can be given

Some sentence adverbs link a sentence with a preceding one:

England played well in the first half. However, in the second half their weaknesses were revealed.

Other sentence adverbs of this type are accordingly, consequently, hence, moreover, similarly, and therefore.

Prepositions

Prepositions cannot be distinguished by any formal features. A list of prepositions will illustrate this point:

across, after, at, before, by, during, from, in, into, of, on, to, under, with, without

We can, say, however, that prepositions typically come before a noun:

The noun does not necessarily come immediately after the preposition, however, since determiners and adjectives can intervene:

after the storm
on white horses
under the old regime

Whether or not there are any intervening determiners or adjectives, prepositions are almost always followed by a noun. In fact, this is so typical of prepositions that if they are not followed by a noun, we call them "stranded" prepositions:

Prepositions are invariable in their form, that is, they do not take any inflections.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 870