1896.8 Conclusion
though in the case of admittedly there can be no blending with or reinforce-
ment by an adjunct adverbial, as such does not exist. The rise of admittedly
also suggests that the synchronic correspondences noted between disjunct
adverbials and clausal structures may indeed have a diachronic basis (contra
Greenbaum 1969 ). However, the exact syntactic mechanism for the change
from It be admitted that > admittedly remains to be explained, involving clause
reduction or “adverbialization” of an entire clause. As this apparently occurs
fi rst within subordinate structures (see 14), the change may be motivated by
processing constraints (the elimination of multiple embeddings), but more evi-
dence would be needed to confi rm this hypothesis. The change in scope shown
by admittedly over time, with scope over an NP or PP, followed by scope over
a predicate, and fi nally by scope over the entire clause, follows the expected
course of scope expansion (see Traugott 1995a ). The appearance of the sub-
junct use of admittedly (e.g., an admittedly stupid remark ) alongside the dis-
junct use remains to be explained.^20 As the dating of subjunct and disjunct
uses of admittedly are roughly contemporaneous, we cannot establish a clear
chronology. It would be expected that the subjunct use would develop out of
the disjunct use as it is more tightly bound and hence more grammaticalized.
The development of admittedly is shown in Figure 6.2.
6.8 Conclusion
This synchronic and diachronic study of admit in this chapter has suggested
a complex relation between the disjunct adverbial admittedly , the subjunct
adverbial admittedly , the adjective admitted , the speech act verb admit , the
procedural/ performative I admit , the procedural you admit , and epistemic par-
entheticals I/ you admit. It has shown that a disjunct adverbial need not arise
out of an adjunct adverbial but may have a single origin in the it be Adj/ Part
that S construction. It has also shown that for parenthetical I/ you admit , the
It is admitted [Adj] thatadmittedly [Disjunct Adj]admittedly [Subjunct Adj]
Figure 6.2 Development of admittedly20 A possible explanation might be the concept of categorial gradience, used earlier to explain the
appearance of adjectival only (see Section 3.4.2.4).