词组 | sentence adverb |
释义 | sentence adverb The sentence adverb is an adverb or adverbial phrase that is connected with a whole sentence rather than with a single word or phrase in the sentence. Sentence adverbs are a common feature of present-day English, and they go by many names. You will find them called dangling adverbs, floating adverbs, adverbial disjuncts, and probably other things as well. The chief virtue of the sentence adverb is its compactness: it permits the writer or speaker to express in a single word or short phrase what would otherwise take a much longer form. Consider this example: • Luckily I never mentioned having asked —Henry Adams, letter, 23 Nov. 1859 That one luckily replaces some longer expression like "It's lucky for me that " Here is another one: • Strictly, when because of is right, due to is wrong — Johnson 1982 Strictly could be replaced here by the popular strictly speaking, but that too is a variety of sentence adverb. If the adverb were not available, it would be necessary to write something like "From the standpoint of strict grammatical correctness...." So you can see the appeal of the sentence adverb. Here are a couple more for you to try paraphrasing: • Basically, you make an inference if you derive something unstated by using your ability to reason —Bailey 1984 • Phenomenologically, youth is a time of alternating estrangement and omnipotentiality —Kenneth Ken-iston, American Scholar, Autumn 1970 Some handbooks point out that conjunctive adverbs like therefore, nevertheless, and however can also be considered sentence adverbs because to the extent they are adverbial they modify clauses rather than any particular part of the clause. One of the common uses of the sentence adverb is to express an attitude of the writer or speaker: • Clearly we have found that violence is no answer — W. E. Brock, AAUP Bulletin, September 1969 • Strangely, people who write and think like that insist that they are champions of what they have named "humanistic" education —Mitchell 1979 • Hopefully, The Bluebird, when it is finished, will turn out to be a bluebird and not a turkey —Art Evans, Edmonton Jour., 22 May 1975 • Curiously enough, I met Hartman for the first time last night —H. L. Mencken, letter, 24 Oct. 1924 • Luckily the strength of the piece did not depend upon him —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814 • Oddly, though, over the years scan also has developed an opposite meaning —Michael Gartner, Advertising Age, 17 Oct. 1985 • Amusingly, they had widely divergent attitudes toward corrections in their copy —Simon 1980 A great many of the adverbs used as attitudinal sentence adverbs are also used as adverbs of manner, as frankly is used here: • He frankly admits his fondness for the wealth and fame —Current Biography, December 1965 This duality of function is one of the reasons advanced by commentators in objection to a few specific sentence adverbs (in particular, hopefully, which see). They also purport not to understand who is expressing the attitude, although in almost every instance it is perfectly plain that it is the writer or speaker. Note that sentence-modifying adverbs do not necessarily stand first in a sentence: • This is one of the words that turn up, predictably, in the sports pages —Harper 1985 • When Isaac Newton sat under a tree in the 17th century and was famously struck by a falling apple — Martin Hollis, Invitation to Philosophy, 1985 • Matters complicate, unsurprisingly —Stanley Kauff-mann, Before My Eyes, 1980 |
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