Geoff,

In the absence of examples, I can't be sure what you're thinking of as "transitional words," but I would guess they include words like "nevertheless," "however," "therefore," "then," etc.  In my experience, traditional grammar has relegated such words to that grab bag or otherwise unclassifiable words called "adverbs."  There are, of course, attempts to be more terminologically precise, e.g., "conjunctive adverb," but that's a bastard term that says simply, "We don't want to call them either, so lets call them both."

One problem with categories is that they bleed.  Clear conjunctions, like "and" or "but," are frequently used informally as conjunctive adverbs meaning "also" or "in addition" and "however" or "nevertheless."  They tend to be stressed as if they were separate clauses when treated this way.

Herb

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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2010 11:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Part of Speech

What part of speech would transitional words be defined by traditional grammar, or do they make up their own (9th or 10th part or however many we're up to now)?

Geoff Layton

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