English Sentence Adverbials in a Discourse and Cognitive Perspective

Abstract

In an earlier work published in 1988, Toril Swan investigated the development of sentence adverbials (from lesser-scope adverbials such as manner adverbials) in the history of English, specifically in terms of their being grammaticalizations of what has been called speaker comments. The present article pursues a topic that was merely touched on in Swan's longitudinal study, namely the historical evolution of discourse and cognitive functions of sentence adverbials. Over the centuries these linguistic forms have moved into initial position, becoming foregrounded. We examine the implications of our data with particular reference to speaker perspective and discourse organization. It is argued that the reason why English has developed a large class of sentence adverbials that gravitate towards initial position must be sought in discourse organization and cognitive factors.