Epistemic adverbs often become discourse markers and perform various interpersonal and textual functions. While the interpersonal functions of epistemic adverbs have been discussed extensively, their textual functions have received less attention, and have mostly been reported for high confidence adverbs, such as indeed. This study attempts to explore the potential of low confidence adverbs to perform textual functions. It focuses on perhaps – one of the most frequent epistemic adverbs in English. Using Halliday’s typology of expansion markers, it examines the occurrences of perhaps in a sample of the British National Corpus. Its findings indicate that while the uses of perhaps as a connective marker are considerably less frequent than its uses as an epistemic adverbial, there are several textual functions which it performs with some regularity. They include its use as a marker of apposition (exemplification), concession, clarification (corrective uses/reformulation), and, less often, alternation. Additionally, it performs opening and closing functions in the rhetorical domain of discourse. The connective functions of perhaps seem to be related to its ability to signal alternatives, which it shares with other low confidence adverbs, which is why similar connective functions can be expected from the other adverbs in this category.

认知副词经常成为语篇标记并执行各种人际和文本功能。虽然认知副词的人际功能已被广泛讨论，但它们的文本功能受到的关注较少，并且大多被报道用于高置信度副词，例如确实。本研究试图探索低置信度副词执行文本功能的潜力。它侧重于也许——英语中最常见的认知副词之一。使用 Halliday 的扩展标记类型学，它检查了可能在英国国家语料库样本中的出现。其研究结果表明，虽然可能的用途作为一个连接标记比它作为认知状语的使用频率要低得多，它有几个文本功能，它有一定的规律性。它们包括将其用作并列（举例说明）、让步、澄清（纠正使用/重新表述）的标记，以及较少见的交替标记。此外，它在话语的修辞领域发挥着开场和闭幕的作用。的连接功能似乎与它发出替代信号的能力有关，它与其他低置信度副词共享，这就是为什么可以从这一类别的其他副词中预期类似的连接功能。