r~1fffl~Mjj;~ ~ 13 ~ (2011 if) pp. 55-74© 2011 if

B:;t~Jfl~"f:~[Special Lecture]

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty
Used at the Periphery of the Clause

Elizabeth ClossTraugott
Stanford University
The histories of some modal adverbs in English have been shown to involve subjectification andchanges in position with respect to the clause (Traugott and Dasher 2002, Lenker 2010). The question
whether there is a predictable relationship between a) position "outside the proposition", i.e. left andright periphery, and b) subjectivity or intersubjectivity, has been of interest for some time (see Onodera
2004, Onodera and Suzuki 2007, Beeching, Degand, Detges, Traugott, and Waltereit 2009). In thispaper I suggest that while a correlation between topic functions, subjectivity, and left periphery appears to be quite robust, other proposed correlations, e.g. of subjectivity in general with left peripheryand of intersubjectivity in general with right periphery, may be specific to the individual construction
and not generalizable. I outline the histories of no doubt and surely, and show that in its pragmatic
linking function no doubt has come to be used mainly subjectively at left and right periphery whilesurely in the same function has come to be used mainly intersubjectively in both positions.
Keywords:

1.

Modal adverbs; pragmatic markers; subjectification; intersubjectification; left periphery;right periphery; adverb position

Introduction*

I have long had an interest in epistemic modal adverbs (e.g. indeed, in fact, actually), their origins, and the paths of change they have undergone, including their development into primarily pragmatic markers (e.g. Traugott 1989, Traugott and Dasher 2002).
They started out as adverbs of circumstance or manner, and were recruited to do modal
work, typically clause-medially, and later metatextual work, typically "outside" theproposition or "core clause". Their histories are therefore deeply intertwined withchanges in position and with subjectification and intersubjectification (see also Lenker* Aspects of this topic were discussed in various venues, including the 4th Conference on Language, Discourse, and Cognition in Taipei in 2010, and at the Workshop on Historical Pragmatics at
Gakushuin University, Tokyo, and the Twelfth International Pragmatics Association Meeting at Manchester University in 2011. Many thanks to participants at these venues and at the Pragmatics Societyof Japan meeting March 6th 2011 for helpful comments and suggestions. I have benefited especiallyfrom discussion with Noriko Onodera, Yuko Higashiizurni, and Liesbeth Degand.
55

56

2000, 2010 on similar developments with other adverbs such as Old English soplice,
witodlice, both meaning 'truly'). Such changes have raised questions whether there are
predictable correlations between changes in function, position in the clause, and subjectification and intersubjectification (e.g. Beeching, Degand, Detges, Traugott, and Waltereit 2009).
In this paper I will use two modal adverbs, surely and no doubt to explore threequestions, all of which concern historical pragmatics:
Ql What changes in the function of the adverbs surely and no doubt are attested?
Q2 Are the changes correlated with subjectification and intersubjectification?
Q3 Are there predictable correlations between the resulting functions of the twomodal adverbs, (inter)subjectivity, and position at left or right periphery of theclause?
As these questions presuppose a number of theoretical distinctions and perspectives, I
start by broadly outlining some functional distinctions among modal adverbs and somescalar distinctions on a scale of certainty (section 2), and then outline my view of subjectivity and subjectification, intersubjectivity and intersubjectification (section 3). In
section 4 I introduce two hypotheses about correlations between the functions, (inter)
subjectivity and position at left or right periphery of the "core clause" (proposition).
Section 5 sketches the histories of surely and no doubt. I will conclude that in English
at least correlations between function, (inter)subjectivity, and position at best capture
tendencies. Position does not uniquely predict or determine meaning and function (seealso Traugott Forthcoming).
Surely and no doubt are among twenty-two adverbs of "modal certainty" in Present
Day English listed by Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007: 69). Like modals ingeneral, even modal adverbs of certainty call the absolute truth of the proposition into
question. In other words they imply "alternatives" (White 2003: 260). Both surely andno doubt are illustrated in (1). Both could be paraphrased by I am sure, but the pragmatic difference between them would be lost. No doubt expresses the Speaker's subjective certainty that her inference that he was 'disconcerted and offended' is correct in a
way that implies non-negotiation of the point. On the other hand surely does not express the speaker's certainty that it was not my fault so much as intersubjectively seek
confirmation by the Addressee, in this case the imagined reader.
(1)

Whereupon, he wished me a good morning and withdrew, disconcerted andoffended, no doubt; but surely it was not my fault. ( 1848 Anne Bronte, The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall CLMETEV II)

If (1) had been written as (1') without the adverbs:(1' )Whereupon, he wished me a good morning and withdrew, disconcerted andoffended; but it was not my fault.

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause57

he wished me a good morning, he withdrew, he was disconcerted and offended, it was
not my fault would be understood as assertions of fact, not an inference on the Speaker's part. 1 If (1) had been written as (1")(1")

Whereupon, he wished me a good morning and withdrew, disconcerted andoffended; but no doubt it was not my fault.

the comments on 'him' would be understood as assertions of fact, and but no doubt in
the last clause on the Speaker's responsibility would convey self-satisfaction, obstinacy,
and rejection of alternatives such as it was my fault.
The main corpus to be used in this paper is CLMETEV, The Corpus of Late Modern English Texts Extended Version, compiled by Hendrik de Smet, totaling nearly fifteen million words divided into three periods. Data for the first period, 1710-1780 in
CLMETEV I, are about three million words long. Data for the second period, 17801850 in CLMETEV II, are about five and three quarter million words long. And data
for the third period, 1850-1920 in CLMETEV III, are about six and a quarter million
words long. CLMETEV will be abbreviated as CL in citations.

2.

Some distinctions relevant for modal adverbs

A set of distinctions that will be used throughout this paper is between three usesof adverbs:a) Adverbial adjuncts. These have contentful meaning. In English they typically appear toward the end of the clause, after the main verb and before locative, directional,
temporal, instrumental and other adverbs, cf:(2)

Quit Smoking Slowly and Surely with Electronic Cigarettes(http://realevant.com/quit-sm oking-slowly-and-surely-with -electronic-cigarettes.htm/; accessed July 25th 2011)

Slowly but surely is a fixed phrase in contemporary English and has greater freedom of
position than many other adverb adjuncts, 2 but here surely means 'deliberately', not'certainly'; as will be shown in section 5, this is close to its original meaning 'securely'.
b) Epistemic modal adverbs such as in fact, truly, surely. Many of them are derived
from contentful adverbs. As epistemic modals they are non-factual (or "irrealis"), andrelativize states of affairs to a set of possible worlds. They tend to occur clause medial-But does of course imply alternatives, but this is a separate issue.
It may also be used as a view-point expression at the beginning of a clause, but as the paraphrase'slowly and deliberately' shows, it is contentful, and quite different in meaning from the epistemic
linker surely as in Surely that can't be right!, which does not mean 'deliberately' but rather 'pleaseconfirm that ... ".
1

2

58

ly in English, and to presuppose some proposition to which the current one is contrasted. They are paraphrasable by 'I am certain that', i.e. the speaking subject, not the subject of the sentence controls the adverb (Benveniste 1971 [1958]), e.g.:
(3)

a.

b.

Pedestrians Do, In Fact, Have the Right of Way. Proposed legislation
seeks to remind cars and trucks they don't own the road.
(http://shelton.patch.com/articles/pedestrians-do-in-fact-have-the-right-ofway; accessed July 25th 20ll)
You do surely have a point!
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Madelaine/glenn-beck-fareed-zakaria_n_826670_78878244.html; accessed July 25th 20ll)

Here do is affirmative, providing in writing a cue to the contrastive stress that would
normally occur with this use of in fact and surely. Modal epistemic adverbs are on acontinuum between lexical and grammatical expressions (Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer 2007). They are lexical to the extent that they convey the content 'knowledge status', but are primarily grammaticalized expressions, being highly schematic and abstract, signaling the Speaker's evaluation of the proposition on a scale of certainty.
c) Pragmatic modal linkers. These are primarily pragmatic, and serve a connectivefunction linking the current clause with a prior or subsequent one, as does surely in (1)and in fact in (4). Here they are paraphrasable as e.g. 'I want you to agree with me'('surely') or 'better stated' ('in fact') rather than as 'I am certain':(4)

They didn't agree on much. In fact they rarely agreed on anything.
(Nicholas Sparks, http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/62495 (accessed
July 25th 2011))

Unlike the first two uses, this third use has no truth-conditional semantics, is difficult totranslate or paraphrase, and is item-specific. Lenker calls modal adverbs of this type"epistemic linkers", and argues (2010: ll4-130) that expressions denoting truth or fact
may be used as connectives only when signaling concession and contrast (surely) ortransition (Old English soolice 'truly', in fact, indeed). As the implicature 'I want you
to agree with me' suggests, there are additional connective uses, so I will use the term
'pragmatic modal linker' for modal adverbs with a connective function. Such adverbs
are grammaticalized, procedural items that cue how the Speaker conceptualizes relationships within and between clauses, and how the Addressee is to interpret these relationships3 (Degand and Simon-Vandenbergen 20llb).

3 The term "procedural" was first used by Blakemore (1987) for pragmatic, non-conceptual meaning
within a Relevance Theoretic framework. More recently, however, a continuum between conceptualand procedural meaning has been acknowledged (see Nicolle 1998). Only the term, not other aspectsof Relevance Theory are adopted here.

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause

59

Another set of distinctions concerns correlations with degree of certainty (the "modal scale"). In the epistemic adverb domain the scale ranges from certainly to maybe.
As epistemic modals and pragmatic markers surely and no doubt are lower on the scalethan certainly, and no doubt is lower than surely.4 Since epistemic modals and linking
modals express the Speaker's comment on the possibility of the state of affairs and link
what is said to Speaker's degree of conviction (and in some cases to the Addressee's
projected degree of conviction) they are "stance markers" (Biber and Finegan 1988).
Currently there are two major view of "stance". For Biber and his colleagues it refers
to "personal feelings, attitudes, value judgments, or assessments" (Biber, Johansson,
Conrad, and Finegan 1999: 966). This interpretation of stance is mainly subjective inthat Speaker's attitudes are highlighted. A different view of stance is suggested by Englebretson (2007), who refers to "stance-taking". The -ing here is significant, highlighting stance as interactional position-taking actively engaged in by language users as they
communicate with each other. This is a mainly intersubjective interpretation, with
Speakers paying attention to and negotiating with the Addressee.
Surely and no doubt illustrate both types of stance, depending on their function.
As epistemic modals, they express Speaker's assessment of or stance toward the veracity of the state of affairs. This is consistent with Biber's sense of "stance". As pragmatic modal linkers they are used to negotiate pragmatic discourse management, including
Speaker's stance toward the evolving text and anticipation of how the Addressee mayinterpret it. This is consistent with Englebretson's view of stance.

3.

Subjectification and intersubjectification

As is well known, there are different approaches to subjectification and intersubjectification (see Onodera and Suzuki 2007, L6pez-Couso 2010). For me, the -ation signifies change, a process leading from less to more subjective or intersubjective and identifiable in specific semantic-pragmatic changes. Subjectivity and intersubjectivity are, bycontrast, synchronic concepts and are of two kinds. On the one hand subjectivity andintersubjectivity are ambient in communication since they are grounded in the SpeakerAddressee dyad; one simply cannot say or write anything that does not involve the
Speaker's construal. Normally one cannot say or write anything that is not addressed tosomeone (this includes self-address, or address to some future unborn persons). Thereis also coded subjectivity (e.g. use of the modal will to express future) and intersubjectivity (e.g. use of subject inversion to express a yes-no question). The Speaker-Addressee dyad is in my view asymmetric: interlocutors do not have exactly the samecognitive
representations, and prototypically do not, indeed cannot, understand each other completely. This is an enabling factor in change.

4

Certainly, however, appears not to be used frequently as a pragmatic marker.

60

I define subjectification as the recruitment of meanings to express the Speaker's
self and attitudes, including attitudes to text-creation in the sense of discourse-management. Text-creation in this sense has long been part of my thinking on subjectification.
However, I have pointed out in various places (most recently Traugott 2010: 31) thatmy original (1982) use of "textual" was restricted in ways that are no longer tenable in
the hypothesis that semantic change progresses along the path "propositional > textual >expressive". In (1982) I focused on coordinators and complementizers as syntactic notpragmatic metatextual markers. The difference between syntactic and metatextual marking (e.g. use of in fact for reformulation), came to be of major research interest in thelate eighties under the influence of Schiffrin (1987) and therefore "textual" came to beinadequate. As a result of this inadequacy I have tended to include meta-textual, textcreation markers under subjective "attitude". Some readers have concluded from thisthat I have abandoned "text-creation" as an important factor in change (see e.g. Breban
2006, Visconti Forthcoming), but this is not the case, as evidenced by discussion of indeed, in fact, and actually as reformulation markers in Traugott and Dasher (2002).
The adverbs under discussion here are clearly both attitudinal (being modal) and textcreating in their pragmatic linking uses. By contrast to subjectification, intersubjectification is recruitment of meanings to express Speaker's acknowledgement of the Addressee and desire to maintain social exchange with the Addressee (see Brinton 1996:
270). Subjectification and intersubjectification are gradient and on a continuum. Different languages code them to different degrees.
In my view, then, subjectification and intersubjectification are semantic mechanisms (reanalyses, see Eckardt 2006) by which meanings are recruited by Speakers to
encode and regulate attitudes and beliefs (subjectification), and once subjectified, may
be recruited to encode meanings centered on the Addressee and Addressee's self-image(intersubjectification) (Traugott 2010: 35). This is a semasiological approach concernedwith the development of new form-meaning pairings, i.e. with semanticization of earlier
pragmatic meanings, usually implicatures. Some examples of subjectification in English
are:
a)
b)
c)
d)

In the lexical-social domain: essential 'in essence' > 'morally necessary/deantic' (Van linden, Verstraete, and Cuyckens 2008).
In the quantifier domain: a lot of 'a share/unit of' > 'much', cf. a lot of courage.
In the intensifier domain: pretty ('good-looking; evaluative adj') > 'rather' (degree modifier), cf. pretty ugly.
In the connective domain beside(s) 'at the side of' > 'meta-linguistic marker
of added comment'.

Examples in the domain of intersubjectification are largely to be found in the domain ofsocial deixis, e.g.:

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause

e)
f)

g)

61

use of 2nd PI Pronoun for polite address to a singular 2nd person (in Early
Modern English ye for thou).
use of formulae like please < if you please 'if it pleases you'.
use of honorific speech styles (cf. lexical and grammatical markers of thisstyle in Japanese).

As we will see, intersubjectification may also play a role in the recruitment of epistemic
modal adverbs for use as turn-elicitors.
The outputs of both subjectification and intersubjectification are on a continuum ofless to more (inter)subjective when the changes first occur. Subjectification frequently
coocurs with early grammaticalization because the speaker selects the theta role for aparticular noun (case), temporal and phasal relationships (tense and aspect), and connectivity (types of coordination, subordination, etc.). However, a correlation with subjectification is neither necessary nor sufficient for grammaticalization, as the example of essential in a) above shows (see also Traugott 2010).
De Smet and Verstraete (2006) counter my proposal to combine lexical and grammatical examples of subjectification, and argue that a distinction should be maintained
between Speaker-internal content (essentially lexical-social, see a) above) and enactmentof Speaker position, which is interpersonal as it cues the Addressee to metatextual relations (grammatical and procedural, see b)-d) above). They are mainly concerned withsynchrony. Visconti (Forthcoming), in a paper focusing on diachrony, also objects tomy "lumping approach", which has (inter)subjectification ranging over lexical andgrammatical material. She cites Smirnova's (2009) question "Why should the semantic
content of an attitudinal adjective (like e.g. silly) be essentially the same as that of agrammatical construction (like e.g. be going to), as far as their subjective meaning component is concerned?"
This question shows the need to clarify two points. One is that subjectification is
not production of semantic content, but rather of a new meaning more based in the
Speaker's attitude than an older one, a change based in cognitive processes that apply
equally to any item on the lexicon-grammar continuum. What a semantic or pragmaticfeature [+subjective] conveys is not "content" (on the assumption that "content" is referential), but a highly abstract contextualized orientation toward Speaker's attitudes andassessments. The second point is that while subjectification results in increased subjectivity for the expression in its new use, this new subjectivity is always subject tochange, depending on the function of the expression. Silly, which meant 'blessed, innocent', was pejorized by Speakers in Middle English; this was subjectification-sub jective attitudes came to be associated with the word and to be encoded in it. Over time
the word silly came to mean 'stupid', and has been institutionalized with this meaning.
People may now think silliness can be objectively defined by behavior. In this sense
the lexical item silly is now only evaluative, not subjective in its lexical semantics (however, the act of evaluating someone or something on the scale of rationality is a subjec-

62tive act that is often cloaked in societal norms). By contrast, be going to expresses future. Originally a motion with a purpose expression, this string was recruited to mark ahighly abstract grammatical notion. This was also subjectification, but since future expresses subjective assessment of the temporal relationship between a proposition andtime of utterance, be going to has continued to be used subjectively. It is not a contentful meaning, but rather a schematic, grammatical one of the specific deictic type associated with tense in English. It is this deictic temporal context (together with that of theinflected tense marker on be, if it occurs) that determines the subjectivity of be goingto.
Before I move on to discussion of the concept of a correlation between (inter)subjectification and "edge" or "periphery", it may be useful to mention that the view ofsubjectification used here is considerably different from Langacker's well known more
restrictive approach to it. For him (see e.g. Langacker 1990, 2006) "subjectification" isconstrual (not a fundamentally diachronic notion): "As I define it, subjectification occurs
when an objectively construed relationship fades away, leaving behind a subjectively
construed relationship that was immanent in it (inherent in its conception)" (Langacker
2009: 850). Pragmatic markers barely play a role in this view of subjectification. Neither does intersubjectification. Since for Langacker (2007) the Speaker-Addressee dyad
is essentially symmetric, he would doubtless conceptualize it very differently. Despite
the differences, there is no fundamental inconsistency, and indeed there is overlap between our approaches at several points. As De Smet and Verstraete (2006: 369) say,"the difference is not whether something is Speaker-related or not, but how explicitly
reference to the Speaker figures in the form of the utterance". For Langacker a key
question is whether reference to the Speaker is explicit (e.g. by use of a first person
pronoun, cf. Vanessa is sitting across the table from me), or implicit (subjective, cf. Vanessa is sitting across the table). For me a key question is whether an expression is
non-Speaker-related or Speaker-related (subjective).

4.

Two hypotheses about correlations between the functions of adverbs, (inter)
subjectivity, and position at left or right periphery of the clause

There are currently two main hypotheses known to me about a possible correlation
between the function of an adverb (or other expression), (inter)subjectivity, and positionat the periphery of the proposition. They are the subject of much current discussion. 5
One hypothesis is a relatively weak symmetric one: both LP and RP may be subjective or inter-subjective, depending on the function of the expression in question.

5 For example there were three workshops and several papers on related topics at the Twelfth International Pragmatics Conference in Manchester July 2011. Volumes based on these workshops are anticipated.

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause

63

This hypothesis is grounded largely in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese data (Onodera
and Suzuki 2007; also Huang 2000, Onodera 2004). In these works it is shown that inJapanese LP is favored for, but not limited to: a) topic change, b) linking function, c)
reinforcing function, d) summons, e) interjections. Of these a)-c) are primarily subjective, and d), e) primarily intersubjective. By contrast, in Japanese RP is favored for, but
not limited to: f) exclamations, g) tags. Of these (f) is primarily subjective, and g) primarily intersubjective. Although the terms "subjective" and "intersubjective" are synchronic, the markers under discussion are shown in the works cited above to have been
derived historically by (inter)subjectification.
The other hypothesis is a stronger and fundamentally asymmetric one attempting to
make a cross-linguistically testable claim about a particular kind of division of pragmatic labor: "Expressions at left periphery are likely to be subjective, those at right periphery intersubjective" (Beeching, Degand, Detges, Traugott, and Waltereit 2009; see alsoe.g. Hansen 2008, Degand and Fagard 2011 for French; Traugott 2010 for English).
This is because LP represents the beginning of a message before the relevant parts ofthe message itself exist. LP is the locus for a) Topic markers, and b) connectives that
express Speaker's stance, cf. besides, anyway, and not only "frame the clause but also
mark its connection to the previous discourse" (Downing 2002: 288). On the other
hand, RP represents the end of a message when the message itself exists and is manifest
to both Speaker and Addressee. More specifically: "[T]he left periphery anchors the
emergent phrase in the foregoing discourse. By contrast, the right periphery is a locus
for speaker's comments on the completed phrase, suitable for fine-tuning the latter's impact on the audience ... " (Detges and Waltereit 2011)
There has been a tradition in work on European languages to pay attention mainly
or only to LP. For example, Traugott and Dasher (2002) discuss in fact 'in the doing(circumstance adv)' > 'epistemic modal' > 'reformulation marker', and correlations withposition. They distinguish:
(5)

a.
b.
c.

It is true in fact (with respect to facts; adverb of circumstance)
It is in fact true (contrastive; epistemic modal)

In fact it is true (reformulation marker; pragmatic linking modal)

but do not discuss uses at RP. From examples such as the development of indeed, infact, actually and others in English Aijmer (2007: 39) generalized: "Grammaticalization
implies a movement toward a loosely attached pre-front field constituent", i.e. leftward
in the clause or intonation unit. Like Traugott and Dasher's, this is a claim about how
individual form-meaning pairings change, more specifically are recruited by Speakers todifferent functions. The slots and functions have been present throughout the history ofEnglish (with some modifications of Medial adverb position related to changes in verb
structure in the sixteenth century, see e.g. Kroch 1989). However, even though Aijmer's
claim accounts for much English data, as a cross-linguistic generalization it is easily
falsified by changes in many Asian languages where grarnmaticalized elements may be

64recruited to RP over time, e.g. no in Japanese, puny a in Malay, de in Mandarin, allmeaning 'for sure' (Yap, Matthews, and Rorie 2004). As we will see, no doubt andsurely also raise questions about Aijmer's hypothesis. 6
One question must of course be "left" or "right" of what? The answer to thisquestion depends in part on the construction under investigation. Topic markers tend tooccur at or just before the beginning of the proposition, also known as predicate argument structure, or "core clause", a term which I will use here for short. Other elements
typically are "outside" this core clause. Surely, no doubt and other modal connectives
precede the core clause but may follow interjections (Oh, yes), addressee names, connectives (e.g. and, but, for, why) as in (1), or "topicalized" contrastively-used adverbs
like now as in (6):(6)

Short while ago, we saw him at the top of Fortune's Wheel, his word a law to
all Patriots: and now surely he is at the bottom of the Wheel.
(1837 Carlyle, French Revolution; CL II)

They may follow the core clause, as in:(7)(discussing a hand-written will) "But I say that note isn't legal. Houses ought
to be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely."(1910 Forster, Howard's End; CL III)

When surely is clause-final (as opposed to being at RP) it is usually a circumstantial ormanner adverb, as in (8) which can be paraphrased as 'star ... by which he may besafe/sure/certain in directing his course'. To use Langacker's terms, in (8) the construer(he) is "on-stage" and explicitly mentioned. The epistemic modal would require a paraphrase of the type 'I am sure', as in (6, 7)) where the construer is I and "off-stage", inexplicit and implied:(8)

a star in sight by which he may direct his course surely.
(1829 Southey, Sir Thomas More, CL II)

When no doubt is clause-final it is usually the object of have. It often introduces acomplementation with that or but, as in (9):(9)

there was then a call for hats off, and I have no doubt that I was as zealousin this call as any one.
(1733 Hunt, Memoirs; CL II)

6 Since Aijmer (1996) argued that the development of pragmatic markers is not grammaticalization
but pragmaticalization she would probably not include them in her hypothesis. However, the proposed
distinction between gramrnaticalization and pragmaticalization has been argued to be unnecessary (e.g.
Degand and Simon-Vandenbergen 20lla).

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause65

5. A brief history of surely and no doubt
Before turning to the history of the two adverbs, I comment briefly on some findings regarding their use in Present Day English. Of the class of "surely adverbs", i.e.
adverbs of certainty, Biber and Finegan say: "they serve to invite affirmation and to seclude certain assertions from polite dispute . . . By presenting information as if it were
obvious, speakers encourage its acceptance and minimize the need for supporting evidence" (Biber and Finegan 1988: 19). Biber and Finegan do not, however, distinguishuses in different positions (nor do many other researchers, despite citing examples).
Use at RP is almost entirely ignored on grounds that it is "afterthought", or "perfunctory" (Simon-Vandenbergen 2007: 14 on no doubt).
Downing (2001) investigated use of surely in Present Day English in BNC withpronoun subjects. She says it marks two mainly subjective stances: a) it is used as anevidentiality marker indexing the state of the Speaker's knowledge, 7 and b) it is used asa mirative expressing the Speaker's coming into awareness, at moment of speaking of a"state of affairs of which the Speaker was up to then unaware" (p. 277). She also identifies two mainly intersubjective stances that invite response: a) challenging, "fighting
word" use (You CAN grate the cheese surely); this is used mainly with 2nd person, andis disfavored in Medial position, b) seeking agreement, corroboration (Surely he must
be worried?); this is used mainly with 1st plural and 3rd person in her data. This last
agreement-seeking function is one that had been identified earlier by Greenbaum (1969),
Biber and Finegan (1988), and Swan (1988). These examples show intersubjective
surely at both LP and RP.
Of no doubt Simon-Vandenbergen (2007) says that in ICE-GB and FLOB it may
imply a "high degree of predictability", hence ridicule, sarcasm ([re dinner] At the Chelsea Kitchen again, no doubt) (p. 17). It is often used with but (it was a shocking thing
no doubt, but ... ); in this collocation it concedes the truth "in order to posit the counterargument in a context of dialogic argumentation" (p. 16). This concessive use often
conveys more certainty than other contexts (p. 30). These are subjective stances withsome implied intersubjectivity, but do not seek agreement.
5.1.

SurelySurely was borrowed from French in Middle English as a lexical expression. Ultimately from Latin securus 'safe, secure' it appears c.1300 as a manner adverb meaning'securely', 'deliberately' and 'truthfully':

7 Usually "evidentiality" is associated notwith knowledge but source of knowledge, however (seeAikhenvald 2004).

(10)Ac arst pow schal tsykery me, and J:>y treu):>e
but first you shall promise me and thy truth
ply3te ):>at J:>ou for me schalt don a J:>yng.
surlytruthfully swear that thou for me shalt do a thing'But first you shall promise me and truthfully swear that you will do something for me.'(c1380 Firumb.(l) (Ashm 33) 1281 [MED])

Here it is the second person 'thou' who must be certain, not the Speaker who is certain,
so this is clearly a non-epistemic use.
There are also occasional uses as epistemic 'certainly', as in (11):
(11)

a.

Hit is surely soth, J:>e Soverayn of heven .. .
it is surely true, the sovereign of heaven .. .
hym grattest to be of governors alle.
Gartcreated him greatest to be of governors all'It is surely true that the king of heaven ... created him to be the greatestb.

of all governors'(c1400(?cl3 80) Cleanness (Nero A.lO) 1643 [MED])
wyze mans flesh 3eues men
Sewerly on likecertainly in similar manner man's flesh gives mena tast of ):>e wyne of lechery by vnclene kyssynges.
a taste of the wine of lechery by unclean kissings'Surely in similar ways people's bodies give them a taste of the wine oflechery and sinful kissing.'(c1450(c1415) Roy.Serm. (Roy 18.B.23) 235/20 [MED])

This surely is subjective (the Speaker assesses the truth of the proposition) and high on
the certainty scale. Like many other adverbs of certainty, it became weaker c.1700 andnow means 'probably, but without absolute proof' (see e.g. Bromhead 2009 on weakening of epistemic certainty in many modal expression in the eighteenth century).
As (11) shows, use as an epistemic modal in Medial position (11a) and at LP (llb)
is attested in early documents. Material from the MED supports the hypothesis that theadverb was recruited to Medial and then LP position much like indeed, etc., but thedates are close together and more extensive data is needed to confirm this.
The earliest example in my data of an intersubjective use at LP implying that the
Speaker expects agreement or uptake of some kind is (12), from a letter by Sir Thomas
More when he had been imprisoned for treason by his former supporter, Henry VIII.
More is responding to a letter that his daughter Meg sent about her fears for his life:(12)

The more weke that man is, the more is the strenght of God in his saueguard

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause67

declared . . . Surely Megge a fainter hearte than thy fraile father hath, canst
you not haue.
'The weaker that man is, the more is the strength of God declared for his
safeguard ... Surely, Meg, you cannot have a fainter heart than your frail father'.
(?1537 More [HC ceprivl])
Surely continued to be used as a modal adverb in these positions, but is preferred inMedial position through the eighteenth century, according to the CLMETEV data. No
instances at RP are attested in my data before 1710. However, in CLMETEV I (17101780) six examples were found at RP.
The functions exemplified in CLMETEV I are similar to those identified by Downing (2001), except that at LP surely is more strongly epistemic than in Present Day
English. This is especially clear when it is repeated as in (13):(13)

Yet surely, surely, these were famous men!
(1733-4 Pope, Essay on Man; [CL I])(13) is intersubjective. Here and elsewhere surely, surely is used in argumentation, addressing an imaginary reader (or the self as interlocutor).
Frequently there is a response to surely, especially if it is used as a challenge as in
(14):
(14)

"Why, surely, man, thou forgettest whom thou talkest to". "0, sir, said he, I
beg your pardon!"(1740 Richardson, Pamela [CL I])

At RP too we find epistemic 'I am certain', implying a call for agreement ('and you
should be certain too'), hence intersubjectivity:(15)

Usefulness is agreeable, and engages our approbation. This is a matter offact, confirmed by daily observation. But, USEFUL? For what? For somebody's interest, surely. Whose interest then? Not our own only.
(1751 Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals; CL I)

One example is unlike present-day uses. It involves subjective contrast or concession
introducing a but-clause:(16)

there needs nothing more to give a strong presumption of falsehood. Yes, reply I, here are metaphysics surely; but they are all on your side.
(1751 Hume [CL I])

The CLMETEV data over the next two periods show that surely ceased to be used as in(16). Also it came to be favored at LP. There is evidence of increased use for managing interpersonal expectations, developing shared common ground (Clark 1996), seeking

68

uptake and corroboration by the Addressee, as in (17):(17)"Magsy! It isn't true, surely, what Mr. Wilcox says?"(1910 Forster)In sum, surely is used mainly subjectively in earlier texts. However, there is an intersubjective implicature of agreement-seeking especially with 2nd person at LP as well as
RP. Clearly intersubjective, challenging meaning arose at LP and RP in the 18thC,
whether or not 2nd person is explicitly mentioned in the text.

No doubt
Like surely, no doubt is derived from French (ultimately from Latin dubitare 'towaver'). Borrowed c.l300 it was used to mean 'no fear' and was originally used as an
NP in a formula of the type It is no doubt (that/but), I have/make no doubt (18).

5.2.

(18)

to bennys no doute that it nys right worthyit
Certes ...
'Certainly . . . there is no doubt that it is very honorable to bereverenced. 8
respected'(?a1425 (c1380) Chaucer Bo. (Benson-Robinson) 3.pr.9.42 [MED])

The formulae There is no doubt, I have no doubt are still current but no doubt used as
an adverb meaning 'without doubt/certainly' had been used from about 1400:(19)pei hadde plente of pis oynement.
No doute'No question, they had plenty of this ointment'(c1400 Bk.Mother (Bod 416) 140/18 [MED])

Here it is subjective and signals high certainty. Use at LP from the earliest attestations
may be due to the origins of the adverb in the formulae, which typically precede theproposition (Simon-Vandenbergen 2007). There has been no "movement toward aloosely attached pre-front field" such as Aijmer (2007) proposed.
No doubt is consistently used rather differently from surely. Even if used in address to a second person, no uptake is expected (or provided). In (20) John commentson the preceding utterance, and continues with an explanation:(20)'My son, sir, is upon his patrole.''I thought I saw him looking through the corner window but this moment,'
said Mr Chester, who naturally thought that being on patrole, implied walking
about somewhere.

8 In Middle English negative concord was the norm, especially after negated negatively oriented
lexical items such as doubt, forget.

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause69'No doubt you did, sir,' returned John. 'He is upon his patrole of honour, sir,
not to leave the premises'.
(1812 Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, CL II)
Indeed, no doubt when used as in (20) appears to foreclose interaction. In this sense it
could be regarded as marginally intersubjective, but the orientation is toward the Speaker's own line of argument, not toward Addressee, so I consider it to be subjective. (21)is a particularly good example, since the whole discourse is an attempt to silence theAddressee. First, the Speaker suggests the Addressee has nothing to say, then he says
he is sure "the matter" is happily settled for 'her'. By contrast surely here would imply
that the Speaker is open to the Addressee continuing the discussion further.
(21)

Why, ... what signifies all you say? The matter's over with her, no doubt;
and she likes it.
(1740 Richardson, Pamela [CL I])

One of the main uses of no doubt is to mark stages in a reasoned argument. This isparticularly clear when no doubt is linked with but to imply a concessive argument. In
this use no doubt means 'I grant that', and but means 'however' :9
(22)

a.

b.

The son and heir is a promising child nearly the age of my Arthur, andno doubt a source of some hope and comfort to his father; but the other, alittle girl between one and two, . . . he probably keeps from conscientious
motives alone.
(1848 Anne Bronte, The Tenant ofWildfell Hall [CL II])
"What you say is very true, no doubt"; replied Mr Carson; "but how
would you bring it to bear upon the masters' conduct-on my particularcase?"; added he, gravely.
(1848 Gaskell, Mary Barton [CL III])

This kind of concessive use was attested once with surely in CLMETEV I (16), but not
subsequently, whereas no doubt appears with different variants of this use throughout
the whole corpus, and with increasing frequency over time. It is one of the uses identified for present day English in Simon-Vandenbergen (2007). While concessive but inexamples like (22) is by hypothesis connected historically to the use of but as a subordinating complementizer in formulae such as I have no doubt but, it is used as a coordinator in concessive constructions with no doubt.
In sum, no doubt is primarily subjective at LP and RP; it signals personal inference
and assessment, hence use in concessives. It has none of the rhetorical agreement-seek-

Whether there is a period, semi-colon, or commas does not matter. The pragmatics of the discourse is concessive.
9

70

ing of surely, so (23) would be odd, indeed incoherent. Compare the original in (1)again where no doubt and surely in that order reflect orientation first inward-to-Speaker
and then outward-to-Addressee:(23) ##Whereupon, he wished me a good morning and withdrew, disconcerted andoffended, surely; but no doubt it was not my fault.

Similarities and differences
Both surely and no doubt are in their origins both epistemic adverbs of certainty
ultimately borrowed from French expressions in the fourteenth century. Both appear at
RP after 1710 in my data, and both have highly pragmatic uses at LP and RP. There

5.3.

are, however, significant differences.
For one, surely outnumbers no doubt throughout, though the gap between them diminishes (there are 327 instances of surely (used at LP, Medial, and RP) in CLMETEV I
compared to 759 in CLMETEV III, but 143 of no doubt in CLMETEV I compared to557 in CLMETEV III). Surely is favored at LP except in CLMETEV I where it appears slightly more frequently at Medial position. No doubt is favored at Medial position throughout CLMETEV. This reflects lower use of no doubt for pragmatic functions.

6.

Conclusion
This paper started out with three questions:
What changes in the function of the adverbs surely and no doubt are attested?
Both adverbs initially were manner adverbs; both were recruited first to use
as epistemic adverbs and then to use as pragmatic epistemic linkers. This issimilar to changes attested for indeed, in fact, and actually.
Q2 Are the changes correlated with subjectification and intersubjectification?
Epistemic adverb and pragmatic linking uses clearly show subjectification. In
the case of surely, linking uses also show significant Addressee orientation,
hence intersubjectification. To what extent any or all of indeed, in fact, andactually are used intersubjectively remains to be investigated.
Q3 Most importantly for this paper, are there predictable correlations between the
resulting functions of the two adverbs, (inter-)subjectivity, and position at leftor right periphery of the clause? Here the answer is No as far as the modals
studied are concerned. Surely may be used intersubjectively at both LP and
RP, while no doubt appears not to be used truly intersubjectively in either position. Therefore position alone does not predict a division of labor between
subjective and intersubjective meaning. In most cases stance markers are
multifunctional. Like Japanese pragmatic markers, surely and no doubt suggest a relatively weak hypothesis is needed about correlations between prag-

Q1

On the Function of Adverbs of Certainty Used at the Periphery of the Clause71

matic markers, (inter)-subjectivity, and position, and that subjective and intersubjective markers may appear at either edge of a proposition. Which stanceis favored in which position is a characteristic of individual modal expressions, not of position.
Nevertheless, it does appear that some correlations between (inter)subjectivity and position are cross-linguistically robust. These have to do with information-structuring, specifically the correlations between subjectivity and topic. Future research is needed toestablish what slots are available "outside" the proposition cross-linguistically, andwhether there are correlations between (inter)subjectivity and any of the slots. For example, by hypothesis, addressing an Addressee by name, e.g. Alice, in Well, Alice, you
can surely be home on time, is always an intersubjective use, whether at left or right periphery.

Electronic Sources cited
BNC The British National Corpus. 2005. Distributed by Oxford University Computing Services
on behalf of the BNC Consortium. http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/.
CL/CLMETEV. The Corpus of Late Modem English Texts, Extended Version, 1710-1920, compiled by Hendrik deSmet. https://perswww. kuleuven.be/-u0044428/clmet.htm.
FLOB Freiburg-LOB Corpus of English. http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/FLOB/.
HC. Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, Diachronic Part. Compiled by Matti Rissanen, Merja
Kyto, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, Matti Kilpio, Saara Nevanlinna, Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu
Nevalainen, Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. Available from The Oxford Text Archive. ICAME
International Computer Archive of Modem and Medieval English. http://icame.uib.no/.
ICE-GB. International Corpus of English-Great Britain. International http://ice-corpora.net/ice/index.htm.
MED. The Middle English Dictionary. 1956-2001. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
http://www.hti.urnich.edu/dict/med/.

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