Nice example, Bruce. It might be an interesting research project for a
graduate student to trace grammatical terms like "conjunctive adverb"
back to their origins. This has been done for a number of terms.
David Mulroy debunks the widely held, at least among us linguists, idea
that the split infinitive prohibition is the fault of 18th c.
prescriptive grammarians, the best of whom were less prescriptive than
we like to credit them with. It only goes back to the 1860s. Arnold
Zwicky, whom I've cited before, traced the Possessive Antecedent
Prohibition back to its origins in the 1940s. Of course, "noun" goes
back to "nomen" in Late Classical Latin grammars, who translate it from
Greek. I'm curious where "conjunctive adverb" might fit into such a
chronology.
Herb
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce Despain
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 9:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Conjunctive Adverbs
Peter, Herb,
I think immediately of the word "atque", which combines the idea of
"but" and "and" rather closely. "At" is adversative and translates as
but, on the other hand, but it may be said, at least, but at least,
then, thereupon, now, but oh, look now. When used with the particle
"enim" it translates as "yes, but" and with "tamen" as nevertheless.
"Atque" was often shortened to "ac" and translates to and, and in fact,
and moreover, and then, and so, and yet, as, than, to, from. It seems
that the idea of "conjunctive adverbs" might easily have come from
Latin.
>>> "Stahlke, Herbert F.W." <[log in to unmask]> 09/11/06 7:57 PM >>>
Peter,
Conjoined clauses could both begin with "et" in the sense of "both ...,
and". However, there was no punctuation at the time, so it's a little
hard to tell sometimes what ws a sentence beginning and what was a
clause beginning. But Latin also had as set of words rather like our
conjunctive adverbs, words like "etiam", lit. "and now" but could mean
any of "even, still, yet, also, besides". Usually these words would
occur in second position in a clause, but, given the relatively free
word order of Classical Latin, they could occur elsewhere.
Herhb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Peter
Adams
Sent: Mon 9/11/2006 4:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Conjunctive Adverbs
In a message dated 9/11/06 11:15:16 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
> By the way, the fuzziness of the categories "conjunction" and "!
adverb"
> becomes particularly clear when you consider all the "But, ." and
"And, .",
> where, in speech, the "but" or "and" would have clause intonation. Of
> course, there is a proscription on beginning sentences with
conjunctions, a
> proscription that is a handy way for writing teachers to eliminate one
source of
> problems. But, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with starting a
sentence
> with a conjunction. So are "but" and "and" in these usages
conjunctions,
> adverbs, qualifiers, conjunctive adverbs, .?
>
Great question, Herb. So does anyone have any idea when or where or
why
this proscription originated? Is beginning a sentence with et
prohibited in
Latin?
Peter Adams
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