"As Well."

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On May 3, 2007, at 3:58 AM, Bill Le May wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society
>> [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of GLL
>
>> I have heard 'as well' used to mean 'also' (the speaker was
>> from Tempe, AZ,
>> fwiw.)
>
> In the 1980s the company where I worked (in El Paso, TX) merged
> with a firm
> from Toronto, and we had an influx of 5 or 6 Canadians, all of whom
> used "as
> well" for also. As a result, I picked up the usage as well.

Garner's Modern American Usage (p. 71) identifies sentence-initial
"as well" 'also' as a canadianism ("this phrase has traditionally
been considered poor usage.  But in Canada it's standard").

this, of course, is not the usage this discussion started with, which
was "as well" used as a sentence-final negative polarity particle,
where standard english has "either".  there are at least three
phenomena here:

1.  sentence-final (positive) additive adverbial: Kim went as well
'Kim also went, Kim went too'.  standard.

2.  sentence-initial discourse linker: As well, there are the
children to consider 'Also, there are the children to consider'.
disparaged by some, but apparently ok in canada.

3.  sentence-final negative additive adverbial: Kim didn't go as well
'Kim also didn't go, Kim didn't go either'.  non-standard, much like:
Kim didn't go too.

these are clearly related uses, but need to be distinguished.  #1
(with "as well" functioning as a tightly adjoined focus particle) is
presumably the historical original.  in #2, "as well" is treated as a
loosely adjoined sentence adverbial and can then occur in sentence-
initial position, functioning as a discourse linker; "too" underwent
the same extension: Too, there are the children to consider.  (see
MWDEU under "too" for some discussion of the complex history of this
usage.)  #3 is an extension of "as well" as in #1 to negative
contexts, where the standard focus particle is "either".

arnold

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