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Realizations of the Connective Adjunct: summary

المؤلف:  Angela Downing

المصدر:  ENGLISH GRAMMAR A UNIVERSITY COURSE

الجزء والصفحة:  P70-C2

2026-05-08

244

Realizations of the Connective Adjunct: summary

Adverbs:          nevertheless, moreover, first, therefore, next, now namely,

                         accordingly, consequently, alternatively

PPs:                  in other words, by the way, on top of that

AdjGs:              last of all, better still

AdvGs:             more accurately

Fin.cl:               that is to say, what is more

Non-fin.cl:       to sum up, to cap it all

In daily life, turns in conversation are often initiated by a common institutionalized connective adjunct, such as Well . . ., Now . . ., Oh . . ., So . . ., Right . . ., functioning as discourse markers. Their role is double: they mark a new speaker’s turn in the conversation, and at the same time they mark the management of information, as well as the speaker’s attitude to the message. Well has a variety of meanings, signalled by intonation, ranging from decision to deliberation. Oh is a surprisal, indicating that the information received is contrary to expectations, or that the speaker is adjusting to the new information or perception. I mean, you see and you know regulate shared and unshared knowledge. Look and Hey are attention signals, while yes, yeah, no and nope are responses that can occur together with other markers. Here are some examples of discourse markers in spoken English:

Oh my coffee’s gone cold!               [KCU]¹

It was dreadful! That shop.               Oh, that’s supposed to be a good shop! [KST]

I’ve lost my keys!                              Well, what do you expect? You never put them away.

Several of these markers, as well as stance and connective adjuncts, occur in the following extract from Alan Ayckbourn’s play Just Between Ourselves, in which Neil comes to Dennis’s house to inspect a car for sale.

Dennis: It’s the pilot light, you see. It’s in a cross draught. It’s very badly sited, that stove. They

               should never have put it there. I’m planning to move it. Right, now.¹ You’ve come about

               the car, haven’t you?

Neil:       That’s right.

Dennis:  Well,² there she is. Have a look for yourself. That’s the one.

Neil:        Ah.

Dennis: Now³ I’ll tell you a little bit about it, shall I? Bit of history. Number one,⁴ it’s not my car.

               It’s the wife’s. However,⁵ now ⁶ before you say ah-ah – woman driver, she’s been very

               careful with it. Never had a single accident in it, touch wood. Well,⁷ I mean⁸ look,⁹ you

               can see hardly a scratch on it. Considering the age.¹⁰ To be perfectly honest,¹¹ just

               between ourselves,¹² she’s a better driver than me – when she puts her mind to it. I

               mean,¹³ look¹⁴ considering it’s what now – seven – nearly eight years old.¹⁵ Just look

               for yourself at that body work.

Neil:       Yes, Yes.¹⁶

¹marker/connective; ²connective; ³connective; ⁴connective; ⁵connective; ⁶connective; ⁷marker; ⁸marker, ⁹attention signal; ¹⁰stance; ¹¹stance; ¹²marker; ¹³stance; ¹⁴attention signal; ¹⁵stance; ¹⁶response signal.

¹This and other examples with a three-character identifier are taken from the BYU-BNC (Davies 2004-), based on The British National Corpus from Oxford University Press. Available online at http://corpus byu. edu/bnc.