Indeed

Indeed is conventionally described as a modal epistemic adverb of certainty, with a transparent origin in the prepositional phrase in deed. Its development from PP to discourse marker is traced in Traugott and Dasher (2002: 160-164). Indeed is associated with formal registers and is more frequent (and differently distributed) in writing than in speech (191pmw vs 166pmw in the British National Corpus). At 221pmw, then, the frequency in the political speeches is relatively high, in accordance with the formality of the genre.

Nunez Pertejo (2008), working with the ICE-GB corpus, identifies three functions of indeed: (i) as a speech-act adverb, (ii) as a narrow-scope adverbial modifier, and (iii) as a discourse marker which confirms or reinforces a preceding argument or assertion, this last being by far the most frequent use (2008: 725-731). Aijmer’s (2008) analysis of indeed based on parallel corpora identifies it as a marker of emphasis, of confirmation, and as focalizing or intensifying. And Aijmer (2007: 330) characterises indeed as further having “the social meaning speaker authority”.

Table 4 shows the positions of indeed in the English speeches. The medial position is limited to clauses with be or an auxiliary. (While pre-V position is frequent for English -ly sentence adverbs like clearly and connectives like therefore, it seems to be avoided for modal adverbs such as indeed, in fact, at least, after all, etc. used as discourse markers. Where no other auxiliary is present, a do-construction is used.

Position in the sentence	% of occurrences
Sentence-initial, including 4 x And indeed..	77
After Aux or be	15
After Adj or Adv (constituent-final position)	8

Table 4 The position in the sentence of occurrences of ‘indeed’ in the English speeches (n = 85)

Instances of such adverbials found pre-verbally (no Aux) in other corpora were rarely connective.)

The different functions of indeed apparent in the corpus correlate closely with position in the host (Table 5). Indeed in both final and medial positions is a modal adverb. Final position corpus occurrences, after an AdjP or AdvP host, are all exemplars of the construction Adj|Adv indeed>, in which indeed combines with very to indicate ‘extremely’ (4).

(4) ... the rationale for having such a power is clear and we shall want to look at it very closely indeed. [Lloyd, 09/06/1997]

In medial position (5), indeed stresses the veracity of its host where there may have been doubt (cf. really, truly, definitely); it can be said to be counterexpectational.

(5) . the indications are that conditional fees are indeed widening access to justice. [Hoon, 23/09/1997]

In this position indeed may also combine with an adversative marker to form a concessive construction p, [adversative DM] q> as in (6), or with if to form a concessive-conditional construction (7). In these constructions it can also be described as counterexpectational.

(6) Companies are indeed observing those rules, but not always in a way which positively informs shareholders and employees, or responds to their concerns. [Becket, 04/03/1998]

(7) Who do you think should run such a bidding system, if indeed you are persuaded by its attractions? [Aitkin, 15/03/1995]

Initial occurrences, by contrast, are all discourse connective; and by virtue of this position, indeed acts as a presentative. The hosts are not all full clauses, as exemplified in (8).

(8) Hong Kong stands as a monument to what the human spirit can, indeed will, achieve. [Rifkin, 12/02/1997]

In the great majority of cases (v. Table 5), the indeed host is a wider, stronger claim than the preceding one. The examples in (9) are typical. In contexts such as (9a), the relation is usually expressed in French with au contraire (v. Lewis 2005: 45-46).

(9) a. NATO has not collapsed. Indeed - the best test of success - countries are queuing for membership. [Portillo, 05/12/1995]

b. The new government in Britain has a clear plan about how it intends to shape British foreign policy, and indeed to shape the world in which Britain lives. [Symons, 10/10/1997]

c. Hong Kong, as so often in its history, has defied the pessimistic smart Alecs. Indeed it has defied the odds. [Major, 04/03/1996]

In a few instances, the indeed host largely repeats the previous idea (10), or provides some detail or additional information about it that exemplifies, clarifies or justifies it (11). These contexts are the closest to the French contexts in which en effet is found.

(10) IT offers immeasurable oppportunities to bring new, more efficient ways of delivering public services shaped to meet the needs of the customer. Indeed, IT presents an amazing opportunity to rethink fundamentally the way that Government provides services [Freeman, 28/10/1996]

(11) ... trade has always been the backbone of Anglo-Tunisian relations. Indeed, our first formal treaty in 1662 was about commerce. [Hanley, 09/01/1997]

Table 5 summarizes the distribution of indeed in the corpus.

In the ICE-GB corpus, Aijmer (2008: 117-119) found indeed to be more than twice as frequent in parliamentary debates and non-broadcast speeches (respectively 80.9 and 61.9 per 100 kwords) as in other genres and in those contexts it typically conveys rhetorical strengthening: “The function of indeed in parliamentary debates is to strengthen the assertion or argument (the rhetorical use of indeed) by adding more certainty especially in the combination and indeed’ (Aijmer 2008: 117). Simon-Vandenbergen and Aijmer (2007) likewise note that “‘x and indeed y’ ... implies that y is informationally stronger than x” (2007: 120). The findings from the present political speeches corpus bear this out, though the frequencies are much lower at 22 per 100 kwords.

While operating as an epistemic modal adverb, emphasizing veracity, indeed, like some other epistemic adverbs, can be used dialogically, persuasively, depending on the assumptions the speaker makes about the hearer’s state of knowledge and

Table 5 The functions of ‘indeed’ in the English corpus (n = 85)

Position

Construction

Function

n=

%

Host-final

very {AdjIAdv} indeed

Intensification

7

8

Medial

(post-Aux)

Subj Aux indeedV C

Counterexpectation contexts

13

15

(a) emphasis

8

(b) concession

3

(c) concessive-conditional

2

Initial

p indeed q

Rhetorical salience

65

77

(a) q is wider/stronger claim than p

54

(b) q gives detail of p

6

(c) unclear occurrences

5

beliefs. This rhetorical function depends on indeed being seen in the wider context of a discourse construction,
indeed q> where q is a wider or stronger claim than p, set in a wider-still context of a thematic chunk of discourse.