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Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:04 am
Post subject: Usage of however/but |
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I don't know well about However/ But
I think both of them are used when connecting contrastive clauses. Are
there any differences between them? |
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The Other Fran
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:04 am
Post subject: Re: Usage of however/but |
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blue...@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | I don't know well about However/ But
I think both of them are used when connecting contrastive clauses. Are
there any differences between them?
|
.... connecting contrasting clauses
"However" is often used to emphasise the negation of something
alongside "but".
e.g.
He was strong, but not strong enough, however.
.... yet it has other uses as well.
In the following case it means something like "regardless":
However you resolve the matter, get back to me with an answer by
Tuesday.
TOF |
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Joe Fineman
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 7:09 am
Post subject: Re: Usage of however/but |
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bluex86@gmail.com writes:
| Quote: | I don't know well about However/ But I think both of them are used
when connecting contrastive clauses. Are there any differences
between them?
|
This came up here almost 12 years ago, and I replied:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Both "but" and "however" imply that what comes before will cause the
reader or listener to be surprised by what comes after. "She was
poor, but she was honest" and "She was poor; however, she was honest"
both imply that the person addressed expects poverty to lead to
dishonesty. ("But" has, in addition, a weak sense implying mere
contrast: I can say "I went to Philadelphia, but she went to New
York", even when you have no reason to expect us to travel together.)
"But" is a conjunction. It must go between the expressions it
connects. It can connect individual words or phrases as well as
entire clauses. Thus, the above sentence can be collapsed into "She
was poor but honest"; that is impossible with "however".
"However" is a connective adverb. It can only connect entire clauses,
and grammatically it is part of the second clause. It can migrate to
later positions in that clause. The above example can be changed to
"She was poor; she was, however, honest" or "She was poor; she was
honest, however" according to the demands of rhetoric; that is
impossible with "but".
"Though" is a conjunction like "but", but [weak sense!] points the
other way: it implies that what comes *after* would lead the listener
to be surprised at what comes *before*. "She was honest, though she
was poor" is equivalent to the example given above.
The way I have punctuated the above examples is the standard one found
in style books, and I recommend it; but you will find that many
disagree.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I would only add now that my discussion of the semantics of these
words was too restrictive. "She was poor, but she was honest" does
not necessarily mean that the speaker expects the listener to infer
dishonesty from poverty; it merely means that the listener's response
to the second clause is expected to conflict in some way (intellectual
or emotional) with his or her response to the first clause -- in this
case, perhaps, regret at poverty vs admiration for honesty.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net
||: The king's cheese is two-thirds gone in parings, but no  |
||: matter, 'tis made of the people's milk. | |
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John Lawler
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2005 2:53 pm
Post subject: Re: Usage of however/but |
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Joe Fineman <joe_f@verizon.net> writes:
| Quote: | bluex86@gmail.com writes:
I don't know well about However/ But I think both of them are used
when connecting contrastive clauses. Are there any differences
between them?
This came up here almost 12 years ago, and I replied:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Both "but" and "however" imply that what comes before will cause the
reader or listener to be surprised by what comes after. "She was
poor, but she was honest" and "She was poor; however, she was honest"
both imply that the person addressed expects poverty to lead to
dishonesty. ("But" has, in addition, a weak sense implying mere
contrast: I can say "I went to Philadelphia, but she went to New
York", even when you have no reason to expect us to travel together.)
"But" is a conjunction. It must go between the expressions it
connects. It can connect individual words or phrases as well as
entire clauses. Thus, the above sentence can be collapsed into "She
was poor but honest"; that is impossible with "however".
"However" is a connective adverb. It can only connect entire clauses,
and grammatically it is part of the second clause. It can migrate to
later positions in that clause. The above example can be changed to
"She was poor; she was, however, honest" or "She was poor; she was
honest, however" according to the demands of rhetoric; that is
impossible with "but".
"Though" is a conjunction like "but", but [weak sense!] points the
other way: it implies that what comes *after* would lead the listener
to be surprised at what comes *before*. "She was honest, though she
was poor" is equivalent to the example given above.
The way I have punctuated the above examples is the standard one found
in style books, and I recommend it; but you will find that many
disagree.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I would only add now that my discussion of the semantics of these
words was too restrictive. "She was poor, but she was honest" does
not necessarily mean that the speaker expects the listener to infer
dishonesty from poverty; it merely means that the listener's response
to the second clause is expected to conflict in some way (intellectual
or emotional) with his or her response to the first clause -- in this
case, perhaps, regret at poverty vs admiration for honesty.
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Rather than calling it an adverb, I think I'd say that "however" is a
subordinating conjunction like "(al)though" and "nevertheless", in that it
introduces a subordinate (adverbial) clause. As subordinating conjunctions,
they are in contrast to "but", which is a coordinating conjunction, joining
two clauses or phrases of equal type, neither of which is subordinate to the
other, just like "and" and "or". There's a big syntactic difference between
the two types.
-John Lawler Linguistics umich.edu & wwu.edu
-------------------------------------------------------
"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love,
and then for a few close friends, and then for money."
- Molière |
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