Four types of English evidential -<i>ly</i> adverbs

Abstract This paper focuses on the distribution, scope and semantics of UK English evidential -ly adverbs in declarative sentences. It draws on work done on the classification of English evidential adverbs into evidential categories of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), which makes use of a grammatical component made up of a layered hierarchy. The paper presents a qualitative analysis in terms of the meaning, scope, and position of evidential -ly adverbs. The FDG evidential subcategories are Reportative ( reportedly ), Inferential ( presumably ), Deduction ( clearly ) and Event Perception ( visibly ). Various FDG-related tests reveal more about the behaviour of English evidential adverbs. In order to carry out the tests, examples of the use of evidential adverbs in this paper have been constructed by the author and their acceptability judged by native speakers of South-East England. It becomes evident not only that the meaning of evidential adverbs in declaratives is context-dependent, which makes them chameleon-like, but also that the meaning of evidential -ly adverbs determines their scope, which itself is reflected in their formal behaviour. Furthermore, the paper confirms observations of others that the reportative evidential subcategory acts differently from the three other subcategories — inferential, deductive and event perception.