Disjunct (linguistics)

Last updated

In linguistics, a disjunct is a type of adverbial adjunct that expresses information that is not considered essential to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the speaker's or writer's attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional content of the sentence, "expressing, for example, the speaker's degree of truthfulness or his manner of speaking." [1]

Contents

A specific type of disjunct is the sentence adverb (or sentence adverbial), which modifies a sentence, or a clause within a sentence, to convey the mood, attitude or sentiments of the speaker, rather than an adverb modifying a verb, an adjective or another adverb within a sentence.

More generally, the term disjunct can be used to refer to any sentence element that is not fully integrated into the clausal structure of the sentence. Such elements usually appear peripherally (at the beginning or end of the sentence) and are set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma (in writing) and a pause (in speech).

Examples

Here are some examples (note: the disjuncts that follow are 'sentence adverbs'):

Sometimes, the same word or phrase can be interpreted either as a disjunct or as a simple adjunct:

They seriously worked in an underground diamond mine run by Barbara.
Disjunct meaning: I'm serious when I say that they worked in an underground diamond mine ...
Adjunct meaning: They worked with seriousness...

An example of a sentence adverb modifying a sentence is: Unfortunately, when I got to the supermarket it had run out of the vegetable I like. An example of a sentence adverb modifying a clause within a sentence is: I liked the red car in the forecourt but, unfortunately, when I got to the dealer it was already sold.

"Unfortunately" thus communicates the regret or disappointment the speaker experiences and so manifests as a sentence adverb the sentiments of the speaker.

"Unfortunately", however, is only one of many sentence adverbs that can modify a speaker's attitude. Others include "mercifully," "gratefully," "oddly," "admittedly," etc. [2]

Hopefully

"Hopefully" is an example of a word whose use as a disjunct ("it is hoped") is sometimes controversial.

(Most / More) importantly

This commonly used sentence adverbial phrase has been decried by some grammarians. Examples of its use, from the OED, are:

Writers have claimed that the preferable phrase should be "more (or most) important". For instance, Washington State University English professor Paul Brians writes:

When speakers are trying to impress audiences with their rhetoric, they often seem to feel that the extra syllable in “importantly” lends weight to their remarks: “and more importantly, I have an abiding love for the American people.” However, these pompous speakers are wrong. It is rarely correct to use this form of the phrase because it is seldom adverbial in intention. Say “more important” instead. The same applies to “most importantly”; it should be “most important.” [3]

However, Merriam-Webster write:

American commentators seem to object to the adverb and recommend the adjective.

and, after discussion, conclude

You can then use either the adjective or the adverb; both are defensible grammatically and both are in respectable use. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering questions such as how, in what way, when, where, to what extent. This is called the adverbial function and may be performed by single words (adverbs) or by multi-word adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.

English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts.

Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions, are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations or mark various semantic roles.

In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which modifies the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", providing extra details about which particular ball is being referred to. Similarly, the adverb "quickly" acts as a modifier in the verb phrase "run quickly". Modification can be considered a high-level domain of the functions of language, on par with predication and reference.

A dangling modifier is a type of ambiguous grammatical construct whereby a grammatical modifier could be misinterpreted as being associated with a word other than the one intended. A dangling modifier has no subject and is usually a participle. A writer may use a dangling modifier intending to modify a subject while word order may imply that the modifier describes an object, or vice versa.

In linguistics, a participle is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, participle has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adjective, as in a laughing face".

In English grammar, an adverbial is a word or a group of words that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb. Look at the examples below:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English compound</span> Aspect of English grammar

A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components.

In linguistics, an adjunct is an optional, or structurally dispensable, part of a sentence, clause, or phrase that, if removed or discarded, will not structurally affect the remainder of the sentence. Example: In the sentence John helped Bill in Central Park, the phrase in Central Park is an adjunct.

A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as the complement of the verb "know" rather than as a freestanding sentence. Subtypes of dependent clauses include content clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial clauses.

In grammar, a complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression. Complements are often also arguments.

In linguistics, an adverbial phrase ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Adverbial phrases can be divided into two types: complement adverbs and modifier adverbs. For example, in the sentence She sang very well, the expression very well is an adverbial phrase, as it modifies the verb to sing. More specifically, the adverbial phrase very well contains two adverbs, very and well: while well modifies the verb to convey information about the manner of singing, very is a degree modifier that conveys information about the degree to which the action of singing well was accomplished.

An adverbial clause is a dependent clause that functions as an adverb. That is, the entire clause modifies a separate element within a sentence. As with all clauses, it contains a subject and predicate, though the subject as well as the (predicate) verb are omitted and implied if the clause is reduced to an adverbial phrase as discussed below.

A compound modifier is a compound of two or more attributive words: that is, two or more words that collectively modify a noun. Compound modifiers are grammatically equivalent to single-word modifiers and can be used in combination with other modifiers.

In English grammar, a flat adverb, bare adverb, or simple adverb is an adverb that has the same form as the corresponding adjective, so it usually does not end in -ly, e.g. "drive slow", "drive fast", "dress smart", etc. The term includes words that naturally end in -ly in both forms, e.g. "drive friendly". Flat adverbs were once quite common but have been largely replaced by their -ly counterparts. In the 18th century, grammarians believed flat adverbs to be adjectives, and insisted that adverbs needed to end in -ly. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "It's these grammarians we have to thank for ... the sad lack of flat adverbs today". There are now only a few flat adverbs, and some are widely thought of as incorrect. Despite bare adverbs being grammatically correct and widely used by respected authors, they are often stigmatized. There have even been public campaigns against street signs with the traditional text "go slow" and the innovative text "drive friendly."

<i>-ing</i> English language suffix

-ing is a suffix used to make one of the inflected forms of English verbs. This verb form is used as a present participle, as a gerund, and sometimes as an independent noun or adjective. The suffix is also found in certain words like morning and ceiling, and in names such as Browning.

An adverb is a word that modifies the meaning of a verb, and an adverbial phrase is a combination of words that perform the same function. The German language includes several different kinds of adverbial phrases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English prepositions</span> Prepositions in the English language

English prepositions are words – such as of, in, on, at, from, etc. – that function as the head of a prepositional phrase, and most characteristically license a noun phrase object. Semantically, they most typically denote relations in space and time. Morphologically, they are usually simple and do not inflect. They form a closed lexical category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English adverbs</span>

English adverbs are words such as so, just, how, well, also, very, even, only, really, and why that head adverb phrases, and whose most typical members function as modifiers in verb phrases and clauses, along with adjective and adverb phrases. The category is highly heterogeneous, but a large number of the very typical members are derived from adjectives + the suffix -ly and modify any word, phrase or clause other than a noun. Adverbs form an open lexical category in English. They do not typically license or function as complements in other phrases. Semantically, they are again highly various, denoting manner, degree, duration, frequency, domain, modality, and much more.

LFN has an analytic grammar and resembles the grammars of languages such as the Haitian Creole, Papiamento, and Afrikaans. On the other hand, it uses a vocabulary drawn from several modern romance languages – Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian.

References

  1. Brinton, Laurel J. and Brinton, Donna,The Linguistic Structure of Modern English John Benjamins Publishing Company, 29 Jul 2010, p. 219.
  2. McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Companion to the English Language, pp. 16-17. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN   0-19-214183-X.
  3. Brians, P. Common Errors in English Usage: The Book (2nd Edition, November, 2008)
  4. Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster's dictionary of English usage, p.530