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• Published in: English language and linguistics 2013-11, Vol.17 (3), p.565
• Main Author: Kortmann, Bernd
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bibliographic literature; Semantics
• ISSN: 1360-6743; 1469-4379
• DOI: 10.1017/S1360674313000166

[...]Hasselgård analysed 4,470 adjuncts and classified them according to their position, semantic category, realisation type and discourse pragmatic properties across text types (for very informative visual representations of the adjunct data base see figures 2.1-2.3 on pp. 34 and 38 as well as figures 4.1-4.3 on pp. 68-71). [...]on being confronted with the 'Main findings of the preceding chapters' in section 13.2 (pp. 286-95), some readers may ask themselves in retrospect what, in the first place, the importance was/is of exploring and meticulously quantifying certain aspects of the syntax, semantics and discourse use of adjunct adverbials. The same applies to the preference of individual text types for certain 'text strategies', such as the preference for a spatial text strategy in sports commentaries, for a temporal strategy in letters and fiction, or for a contingency, specifically conditional, strategy in academic writing (p. 293), and to what is said about the various roles that adjunct adverbials can play in the information structure of the clause (pp. 293-4). Besides the summary, another important part of the final chapter is concerned with revisiting the definition and fuzziness of the category 'adjunct' vis-à-vis the categories of conjuncts and disjuncts (section 13.4, pp. 297-303). Since there are, of course, adjuncts whose semantics not only cover the domain of circumstantial meanings, but also the textual domain (home territory of conjuncts) and the interpersonal domain (home territory of disjuncts), it does not come as a surprise that in section 13.4.5 Hasselgård ultimately suggests prototype definitions for each of these three major classes of adverbials, with a special focus on semantic and pragmatic criteria on top of the well-known ones suggested in, for example, Quirk et al.