On the history of concessive connectives in english. Diachronic and synchronic evidence

Abstract

The paper examines the historical development of concessive connectives and concessive sentences in English. Concessivity is shown to be a derived notion and the late development of this category, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, is shown to be reflected in the morphology of the connectives: concessive connectives derive either from conditional connectives, from expressions asserting remarkable co-occurrence or co-existence, or from notions earlier only applicable to human agents or experiencers. Synchronic data taken from a variety of languages are shown to support the claims made on the basis of data taken from the history of English alone. The historical discussion throws some interesting light on the meaning and function of concessive constructions in present-day English.