What does “hopefully” mean?
In the following sentence, what does hopefully mean, what part of speech is it, and what does it modify?
If the rain continues tomorrow in Wisconsin, it will be dry for many months.
From merriamwebster.com. I hope:
a hopeful manner. 2 : it
is hoped : we hope : hopefully the rain will end soon.
If “it is hoped” or “I hope” then is the entire main subject and predicate of the sentence subsumed into the word hope?
What happens if I use a comma in a sentence, both grammatically and semantically?
Is thunderstorm rain expected to end soon, I don’t want to worry.
I would like to get a copy of the new book, If I’m So Successful, I can get another copy. Can a person change my mind?
If Hopefully is an adverb in your excerpt, it modifies the whole sentence rather than any individual words within it. it is an example of a disjunct related to which Brinton & Brinton (via LinguisticsGirl ) say
Disjunct adverbials refer to the attitude of the speaker toward the or judgment of the proposition such as truthfulness of manner of speaking. In English grammar, the grammatical form that can function as the disjunct adverbial are the adverb phrase, prepositional phrase, and adverb clause.
More specifically, it is a sentence adverb, a common if sometimes disliked usage: Unfortunately,
the show ended late.
I don’t think it was the kitchen that was closed or shattered. We have finished the kitchen. Why’s that?
Obviously, I will order both desserts.
Oxford reports general suspicion of sentence adverbs in some quarters; some prefer to reword them— it is luck that in place of fortunately — and reject those which refer to the speaker’s attitude, which cannot be reworded in this way (one can not say it is frank that in place of frankly). What seems arbitrary, of course? I should say it is widely accepted, but I’m not sure about misguided purists.
An adverb after conversion from verb to adjective is now an
adverb. It is now in a sentence of : Hope (first verb) + ful (then adjective + ly). Why do adverbs have a meaning beyond the original verb?
I hope that it
won’t rain today too much.
How bad is forecast for raining this afternoon in the Philippines?
