Abstract:
Contrast is not only “one of those general conceptions we all are acquainted with” (Rudolph
1996: 3), it is also an important notion in linguistics both for studies of information structure
(e.g. Chafe 1976, Umbach 2004) and for studies of discourse structure (e.g. de Hoop & de
Swart 2004, Umbach 2004, Couper-Kuhlen & Kortmann 2000). However, such studies often
seem to focus more on the semantics than on the discourse functions of contrast, and corpus-based
research still appears relatively rare (but see Rudolph 1996, Salkie & Oates 1999). By
contrast, this paper uses a specialised corpus of newspaper discourse as the basis for an analysis
of the distribution and discourse functions of but, concentrating on its evaluative function.
