In the citation above the adverb surely is not intended to indicate that a person thinks of something “in a sure manner” it qualifies the entire statement, and has the meaning of “assuredly” (another word that is often used as a sentence adverb). ”Crabtree’s Complaint,” The Spirit of the Public Journals, 1803 “At church!” cried she “surely you don’t think us so barbarously unfashionable as to go to church!” A sentence adverb modifies the meaning of an entire statement (as opposed to the adverb of manner, which modifies a single word or phrase).
Hopefully can be used as a sentence adverb (also referred to occasionally as an adverbial disjunct). However, this is not the only manner in which hopefully functions, no matter how much people might wish it were otherwise. The issue that some people have with the preceding sentence is that hopefully should rightfully be confined to meaning “in a hopeful manner,” and to write that “in a hopeful manner people will stop debasing the English language” just doesn’t make much sense. As in “Hopefully, people will stop debasing the English language, and we can all go back to writing as Chaucer did.”
It was the sense of hopefully that we define as “it is hoped: I hope: we hope.” Hopefully, that's good enough for you.īut what could this “modern usage” of hopefully be? Was it perhaps, as is the case with literally, one in which the word took on a meaning that was close to opposite of its commonly accepted one? Did it have something to do with millennials? Was it one in which the word lost all meaning? Not quite.
'Hopefully' has been used as a sentence adverb since at least 1648.
0 kommentar(er)
