Additives, Exclusives, and Particularizers

Additives "add" two or more items together, emphasizing that they are all to be considered equal:

[1] Lynn's prewar success had been as a light historical novelist; he employed similar fanciful ideas in his war novels [...] Joseph Hocking's war novels are also dominated by romance and adventure [W2A-009-40ff] [2] German firms have an existing advantage as a greater number of their managers have technical or engineering degrees. Japanese managers, too, have technical qualifications of a high order. [W2A-011-51ff]

In [1], the adverb also points to the similarities between the war novels of Lynn and those of Hocking. In [2], the adverb too functions in a similar way, emphasizing the fact that the qualifications of Japanese managers are similar to those of German managers.

In contrast with additives, EXCLUSIVE adverbs focus attention on what follows them, to the exclusion of all other possibilities:

[3] It's just a question of how we organise it [S1B-075-68] [4] The federal convention [...] comes together solely for the purpose of electing the president [S2B-021-99]

In [3], just excludes all other potential questions from consideration, while in [4], solely points out the fact that the federal convention has no other function apart from electing the president. Other exclusives include alone, exactly, merely, and simply.

PARTICULARIZERS also focus attention on what follows them, but they do not exclude other possibilities:

[5] The pastoralists are particularly found in Africa [S2A-047-3] [6] Now this book is mostly about what they call modulation [S1A-045-167]

In [5], it is implied that Africa is not the only place where pastoralists live. While most of them live there, some of them live elsewhere. Sentence [6] implies that most of the book is about modulation, though it deals with other, unspecified topics as well. Other particularizers include largely, mainly, primarily, and predominantly.

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