Between core and periphery: the development in English of a modal adverb, an evaluative adverb and a discourse connector

Abstract In recent discourse approaches to the peripheries, sentence adverbs have received less attention than categories such as pragmatic markers or discourse connectors. This study compares the development of sentence adverbs and discourse connectors via a case study of evidential apparently , evaluative sadly , and discourse-connector instead . These expressions occur in present-day English in all three ‘peripheral slots’. The study shows that the three expressions evolved into peripheral stance expressions via similar mechanisms, the developments being favoured by occurrence in constructions which appear to provide ‘bridging contexts’. The expressions are viewed in the light of two models of the development of such peripherals: Grammaticalization theory and Diachronic Construction Grammar. The findings point to some compatibility with a discourse-prominence-based approach to grammaticality and some compatibility with a model of productivity within a higher-level modification schema. Apparent regularities in the diachronic development, together with parallels between sentence modifiers and constituent modifiers, and synchronic relations between the constituent source items and the emergent peripheral items, suggest that the ‘boundary’ between core and periphery is both permeable and gradient rather than clear-cut.