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I/You Admit and Admittedly
Greenbaum ( 1969 : 94) classifi es admittedly as a content (or attitudinal) dis-
junct, which expresses “the speaker’s attitude to what he is saying, his evalu-
ation of it, or shades of certainty or doubt about it.”^7 Content disjuncts are
generally divided into those expressing a value judgment and those expressing a
degree of truth (ranging from conviction to doubt) (Quirk et al. 1985 : 620– 621).
Falling within the second subclass, admittedly is understood as expressing the
speaker’s conviction in the truth value of the adjoined sentence (Greenbaum
1969 : 202– 203; Quirk et al. 1985 : 620; Hoye 1997 : 184). On the basis of behav-
ioral characteristics (e.g., the inability to be premodifi ed by very , not , quite ,
rather ), Greenbaum places admittedly among his “J- class,” which also includes
allegedly , reportedly , reputedly , supposedly , and undoubtedly (1969: 122).
Admittedly is also seen as belonging to the “performative” or “speech act ”
group of certainty adverbs whose stem is a performative verb and whose
function is to express various types of illocutionary force (Swan 1988b ;
Simon- Vandenbergen and Aijmer 2007 ). Swan places admittedly among the
“miscellaneous” subclass of modal adverbs, which also includes indeed , actu-
ally , allegedly , supposedly ; assuredly , hopefully , (in/ un)disputably , (un)argu-
ably , unquestionably (1988b: 467– 471; cf. González- Álvarez 1996 : 220). In
contrast, Wierzbicka (2006: 323n.) excludes admittedly from the class of epi-
stemic adverbs (cf. Hanson 1987 ), arguing that it presents a statement as an
admission but does not weaken the force of the assertion. Simon- Vandenbergen
and Aijmer ( 2007 : 191) divide speech act adverbials into negative ( avowedly ,
arguably , admittedly ) and positive forms ( incontestably , incontrovertibly ,
indisputably , unarguably , undeniably , unquestionably ).
Scholars agree that admittedly carries concessive meaning (see Greenbaum
1969 : 203; Quirk et al. 1985 : 636; Swan 1988b : 45, 468; González- Álvarez
1996 : 220; Hoye 1997 : 191; Simon- Vandenbergen and Aijmer 2007 : 193). For
Swan ( 1988b : 45) it functions as a hearer- based hedge that anticipates negative
reaction from the hearer, while according to Quirk et al. ( 1985 : 1468– 1469),
it either nudges the hearer in the direction of adopting a particular attitude
or lets the hearer know something about the speaker’s attitude. To Simon-
Vandenbergen and Aijmer, admittedly “most explicitly attributes the conceded
viewpoint to an alternative voice ... and signals that the conceded proposition
detracts from the strength of the counter- proposition” (2007: 193, also 84).
Just as performative I admit is understood to have an “argumentative” aspect
(see above), so is admittedly. Speaking of speech act adverbials in general,
Simon- Vandenbergen and Aijmer ( 2007 : 191– 192) say, “Since they refer in a
very direct way to the need to defend the proposition in question against alter-
native propositions they are most saliently argumentative.”^8
7 On the features of content disjuncts, see Greenbaum ( 1969 : 111ff.).
8 Adverbs in the speech act group “express certainty through conveying explicitly that the speak-
er’s viewpoint is to be seen in the light of alternative voices which are either subscribed to or
countered” (Simon- Vandenbergen and Aijmer 2007 : 84).