Disjunct (linguistics)

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In linguistics, a disjunct is a type of adverbial adjunct that expresses information that is not considered essential to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the speaker's or writer's attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional content of the sentence. For instance:

Honestly, I didn't do it.
Fortunately for you, I have it right here.
In my opinion, the green one is better.

Sometimes, the same word or phrase can be interpreted either as a disjunct or as a simple adjunct:

They worked honestly in an underground diamond mine run by elves.

More generally, the term disjunct can be used to refer to any sentence element that is not fully integrated into the clausal structure of the sentence. Such elements usually appear peripherally (at the beginning or end of the sentence) and are set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma (in writing) and a pause (in speech).