Thanks for you reply, but do I understand well that there are French data in your book, because I am focussing on those specifically, already looking a bit in English and Dutch data. But it is not meant as a typological study. I am not formed to do that kind of research. In that case I would be interested in knowing what you have to say about them, yes. Thank you. Best

Thanks for the reply, Irina.

You were talking about the French one ? I have contexts where it cannot mean "without a doubt, with certainty", e.g if the speaker says that he does not really know but is only guessing :

"Je ne sais pas trop où il est. Il est certainement encore au bureau".

You then have what for other languages (e.g. dutch "zeker") some call the "weak modal value". Dictionairies say it then means "probability", but that is not satisfactory to me...

I keep thinking on the matter and I asked a native professor who teaches in my university in the department of Linguistics. She told me that nowadays its meaning is even on lesser certainty that the adverb ‘ seguramente’ in Spanish. The Spanish adverb expresses far lesser certainty than ‘seguro que’ (it’s certain that’). This last one, on its turn, it’s impossible in a situation whe the speaker is experiencing something.

Dear Patrick,

The epistemic adverbs in French (as opposed to Italian) could be presented (as in Kronning 2006) on a epistemic scale as follows:

126. F R.: peut-être > probablement/sans doute > certainement/sûrement > sans aucun doute

127.I T.: forse > probabilmente > sicuramente/certamente > senza dubbio/senza alcun dubbio

You could find examples as:

122. F R .: Le moment était sans doute, même certainement , mal choisi. (Google)

'Probablement/sans doute' expresses HIGH PROBABILITY and 'Certainement' VERY HIGH PROBABILITY, but not CERTAINTY ('Il est certain que'). However, Guimier (1996:114) says that 'certainement' in the initial position can be interpreted as 'Il est certain que': The possibility of 'très certainement' is compatible with my analysis, but not the existence of 'Il est très certain que'

These are some challenges for You!

Thanks a lot Hans. We (Philipee Kreutz and I ) are working on an article on that word, in which we distinguish a modal meaning, which means total certainty (only in specific contexts, we list and with a special function we describe), and an evidential meaning, meaning something like supposition, guessing, hypothesizing, but strong, and in which their is, most often, not always, probability until high not total certainty. As soon as it is finished, I will send it to you as we will submit it to an article. It is written in English. Scalar uses as you describe are accounted for but they are not always straighforward.

Hello, if you are interested in recent literature about this kind of epistemic and evidential adverbs in an argumentative perspective (relevant, perhaps, to treat possible concessive functions of "certainement" or other interactions between evidentiality/epistemic modality and discourse moves), you could have a look at this paper: Article Evidently epistential adverbs are argumentative indicators: ...

Looking forward to reading your article, J.

Hi Patrick

If I remember correctly, Robert Vion wrote an article on "Modalités, modalisations and something... where he wrote something on "certain'... (Langages 2004). Rossari also worked on this kind of adverbs but I don't know in what extent (cf. for example Rossari, et al. 2016, « Le pouvoir attracteur de mais sur le paradigme des adverbes épistémiques : du quantitatif au qualitatif », Actes des 13èmes Journées internationales d’Analyse statistique des Données Textuelles (en ligne : https://jadt2016.sciencesconf.org/82999 or Rossari in Studii di Linguistica). Gosselin certainly too... (in Information Grammaticale, i.a.)

Thank you Hélène for reminding me of Vion, of which I have an article of 2001 ("Modalites, modalisations

et activites langagières"), I had in my files, but forgot a bit. Vion indeed (221-226) talks but not extensively on adverbs like "certainement" and explains why the adverb weakens the enunciation in "Il arrivera certainement demain" in comparison with "Il arrivera demain", citing Halliday 1994, who makes a similar claim about That's certainly John". I do not know if I agree with that claim in all cirscumstances. In a situation where there is doubt on behalf of other people, saying these sentences amounts to adding certainty on behalf of the speaker instead of lowering certainty, I think. That is one of the elements we try to integrate in our analysis.

Thank you for the reference of Rossari et al. En le cherchant je tombe sur un autre article d'elle, que je ne connaissais pas dans Studii de lingvistică et où il y a des éléments utilisables, même si cela porte sur la concession, que je ne prends pas en compte dans mon étude. Je suppose que cela est également le cas de l'article que tu cites. Merci !!

"Certainement" meaning "certainly" carries a rhetorical intonation and suggests a desire to connect with an interlocutor, or a reading or a listening audience. On the other hand, "Bien sur [with a circumflex]" may often be heard as an affirmative assertion in response to a question. "Certainement" suggests an effort to reassure and reach out with confidence, while "Bien sur [with a circumflex]" indicates a somewhat defensive effort to be assertive in the face of doubt. This is my opinion as a university teaching and research specialist in French literature and language and academic experience as a sojourner in France.

I have no useful information for you, but just wondered if you are using a corpus to find your examples? If so, does it provide enough context for coming to good conclusions about the intended meaning? And whether you are distinguishing between spoken and written language? Looking forward to reading your study.

I have extensively used a corpus in French, indeed, Craig. It was a corpus of written French (Frantext and the huge frTenTen12 o fSketch Engin, which is a mixt of rather "oral" written French, taken from the internet. My article, written in French, is under evaluation for the moment. i will post it as soon as its gets a green light. I am supposed to write an English one on the same subject for September 15th.