This study examines the phraseology of the linking adverbial “besides” to unravel why, unlike similar-meaning transitions such as “in addition,” it sounds unnatural in some contexts. Analysis of written English corpora and grammar reference materials suggests that its natural use is regulated by the negativity-conditioned nature of the preceding statement.
This study examines the phraseology of the linking adverbial "besides" to unravel why, unlike similar-meaning transitions such as "in addition," it sounds unnatural in some contexts, as in "She likes football. Besides, she likes tennis and basketball" (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary). A total of 217 instances from four academic (sections of) written English corpora--the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers, the British Academic Written English corpus, the British National Corpus, and the Corpus of Contemporary American English--and 45 English dictionaries and grammar reference materials were analyzed to identify pragmalinguistic features of the discourse environment in which "besides" is used to bind the sentences together. The analysis suggests that while most reference materials define the usage of "besides" in relation to the nature of the element that follows, no consistent pattern can be discerned across those elements except that the clause introduced by "besides" functions exclusively as a supporting argument. In contrast, its natural use is shown to be regulated by the nature of the preceding statement to which the besides-clause lends support: "Negativity" is encoded syntactically, semantically, or inferentially, entailing argumentative moves within a discourse unit. In most cases, negation is acquired using an explicit negative word (e.g., "not," "never," or "no"); a negative prefix (e.g., "un-" or "dis-"); words with negative implication, such as semi-negatives (e.g., "rarely" or "little"), the focus particle "only," or the degree adverbial "too." Negative assertions are also made by means of constructions conveying a negative proposition, such as a rhetorical question, the subjunctive mood, or the comparative construction. When negativity in the preceding clause is not expressed syntactically or semantically, the besides-clause is found to act as a rhetorical cue for treating previously stated arguments as premises for an inference of a de facto proposition, which takes a negative form without fail.
