Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Can 'surprisingly' work as a conjunctive adverb? Why or why not?



Can 'surprisingly' work as a conjunctive adverb to combine two sentences with a semicolon? Why or why not?



The question can be put in another way: what are the criteria of identifying an adverbial conjunctive? Are these conjunctives a fixed list to be memorized or are there some conditions once met we can use some regular adverb as an adverbial conjunctive?



Question has been asked somewhere else but received little help.



Edit:

Here's a contrived example:




The steak was slightly undercooked; (surprisingly), I found it tasty.




I didn't find 'Surprisingly' on the list of common conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases.



Edit 2:
This page about Conjunctive Adverbs says "There are many conjunctive adverbs – in actual fact, here is a comprehensive list of conjunctive adverbs"



Answer



According to TheFreeDictionary:




"She has never been to France; surprisingly, she speaks French fluently."




it's fine, qualifying the second clause as an unexpected result of the first clause.





Unexpected result



When the second clause is an unexpected result of the first clause, we can use the conjunctive adverbs nevertheless, nonetheless, surprisingly or still.



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