Timeline for What type of word is "maybe" that allows it to be placed at the start of a sentence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 21, 2021 at 1:26 | comment | added | John Lawler | ... and neither does anybody else. Once you realize that, a lot of details about how and why language changes become clearer. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 18:29 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @JohnLawler: Prolly not! But I have to admit it's only when I really stop to think about it that I realise I rarely enunciate even that /b/ in the spoken version of what I just wrote there. Until a few minutes ago I thought my use of prolly there was primarily just an affectation intended to save me a couple of keystrokes in SMS text messages. My "inner voice" would have assured me I was making at least some effort to pronounce the word as it's written, but now I have to admit that actually I usually don't bother to articulate any more than "just enough to be understood"! | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 18:10 | comment | added | John Lawler | Well, nobody would say "Probably", with all syllables and whistles, at the beginning of a sentence. The normal way to pronounce that is "Probly", with less hubbub. | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 14:00 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | The dividing line between a "standard, verb-specific" adverb and a "sentence adverb" isn't always clear-cut. Note that it's meaningless to attempt to differentiate maybe from possibly / probably on the grounds of whether they're "verb-specific" or "sentence-wide", because each individual usage must be analysed in context (a "part of speech" normally only applies to a term as used in a specific context, not to the term itself in isolation). | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 13:55 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 485 characters in body
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| Nov 20, 2021 at 13:55 | comment | added | user163011 | Since maybe, probably, and possibly are all sentence adverbs this can't be the correct term to separate maybe from the other two? | |
| Nov 20, 2021 at 12:48 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 410 characters in body
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| Nov 20, 2021 at 12:34 | history | answered | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |