Adjunct Adverbials in English Studies in English Language Series

In this original study, Hilde Hasselgård discusses the use of adverbials in English, through examining examples found in everyday texts. Adverbials - clause elements that typically refer to circumstances of time, space, reason and manner - cover a range of meanings and can be placed at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a sentence. The description of the frequency of meaning types and discussion of the reasons for selecting positions show that the use of adverbials differs across text types. Adverbial usage is often linked to the general build-up of a text and part of its content and purpose. In using real texts, Hasselgård identifies a challenge for the classification of adjuncts, and also highlights that some adjuncts have uses that extend into the textual and interpersonal domains, obscuring the traditional divisions between adjuncts, disjuncts and conjuncts.

Part I. A Framework for Analysing Adverbials: 1. Studying adjunct adverbials; 2. The classification of adverbials; 3. Some syntactic features of adverbial placement; Part II. Adverbial Positions: Theme, Cohesion and Information Dynamics: 4. Initial position; 5. Medial position; 6. End position; 7. The cleft focus position; 8. Combinations of positions; Part III. Semantic Types of Adverbials: Subtypes, Frequencies and Usage: 9. Space and time adjuncts; 10. Adjuncts of manner and contingency; 11. Other adjunct types: participant, respect, focus, degree, situation, comparison and viewpoint; Part IV. Adjunct Adverbials in English: 12. Adverbial usage across text types; 13. The grammar of English adjuncts: summary of findings and concluding remarks.

Hilde Hasselgård is Professor of English Language at the University of Oslo. Her previous publications include Introducing English Grammar (with Magne Dypedahl and Berit Løken, 2006), English Grammar: Theory and Use (with Stig Johansson and Per Lysvåg, 1998) and a series of articles on word order, cohesion and information structure.