Chapter 6 of Discourse Syntax (Connectives) deals with connectives as one aspect of grammatical cohesion and the grammar of discourse. It introduces the various syntactic elements that function as discourse connectives (coordinators, connective adjuncts), contrasts the overt and the covert expression of additive conjunction, and then turns to other semantic and pragmatic types of discourse relations (causative, adversative, temporal). The discussion of the occurrence of sentence-initial “and” as it is used to connect sentences in texts focuses on spoken discourse and narration. Turning to the other semantic classes of conjunction, the chapter describes characteristic uses of connectives within the academic register. The chapter also explains how to deal with frequencies of occurrence gathered from large-size corpora, elaborating on the need for normalized rates of occurrence rather than absolute frequencies and on how to adjust individual frequencies for their density.

Clause structure may be elaborated by constituents in adjunct function. Adjuncts are of two kinds: modifiers, which are thoroughly integrated into the syntactic structure of clauses, and the more loosely connected supplements. The boundary between adjuncts and complements is not perfectly sharp. Here, we classify adjuncts semantically. Such a grouping is potentially open-ended and leads to overlap between types. The following list of types corresponds roughly to the typical degree of syntactic integration of the adjunct: manner, means, and instrument; act-related; locational (space); temporal (time); degree, intensity, and extent; purpose, reason, and result; concessive; conditional; domain; modal; evaluative; speech act; connective; & supplement.

Supplements are NOT dependents: they are not selected by heads the way complements are. But for every supplement there is some specific constituent that it is (loosely) associated with. We call that its anchor. Supplements can belong to a remarkable range of categories: NPs, clauses of all kinds, AdjPs, AdvPs, PPs, constituents beginning with a coordinator, and even interjections.