sentenceinitially

Sentenceinitially is a term used in linguistics to describe the property of an element that appears at the beginning of a sentence. It is a label for the sentence-initial position and can apply to words, phrases, or larger discourse units that precede the main predicate.

Sentenceinitially placed material often serves discourse-management or information-structuring roles. It helps signal stance, set time, focus attention, or foreground information. Common sentence-initial elements include discourse markers such as however, therefore, and well; temporal adverbials like yesterday or in the morning; and topical phrases such as this result or that idea.

Cross-linguistic variation: Many languages permit a range of sentence-initial material, while others constrain it. In English, sentence-initial adverbials and markers are frequent and flexible. In languages with strict word order, initial material may be tightly linked to information structure and intonation; in verb-second languages, a topic or discourse element can occupy the initial slot before the finite verb.

Research and usage: The term sentenceinitially appears in corpus linguistics and information-structure studies as a label for data points in which the relevant material is at the sentence start. It supports analysis of discourse sequencing, topic-fronting, and stance marking, and is often contrasted with mid-sentence or sentence-final material.