Please cite as: Hannay, Mike, Martínez Caro, Elena & Mackenzie, J. Lachlan (2014) Besides as a connective. In: Gómez González, M.A. Ruiz de Mendoza-Ibáñez, F., Gonzálvez, F. & Downing, A. (eds.) The Functional Perspective on Language and Discourse: Applications and Implications. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 223-242. Besides as a connective Mike Hannay Elena Martínez Caro J. Lachlan Mackenzie 1. Introduction Among the various uses of besides in contemporary English is its deployment as an additive connective. 1 Like moreover, furthermore, likewise, and in addition, it indicates that the discourse unit it introduces is to be interpreted as additional to what has preceded. More precisely, we may expect to find it where one or more arguments have already been given in support of a proposition and a further argument is to be added. Grammarians have tended to assume that the various additive connectives of English are interchangeable; dictionaries usually define them in terms of each other; and style guides for both native and foreign writers are normally satisfied to provide a simple list of additive connectives. If any distinction is made, it is in terms of the etymological meaning of moreover and furthermore as advancing the ongoing argument (cf. the presence of the morpheme more) and that of besides, containing the morpheme side, as introducing subsidiary or tangential information. Informal examination of the use of besides in context, however, suggests that it has particular specificities of use that mark it off as unusual and as quite different from what is generally assumed in the scholarly literature. Consider the following example from the BNC Corpus (Davies 2004): (1) So what are the odds on Anne and Tim staying together ’til death do them part, when all the other Royals have failed? Statistics alone cannot give the answer. After all, there is a 100 per cent marriage failure rate for their generation of the House of Windsor. But they will not have the pressures of other couples in which one is divorced. They will not have 1 Hannay and Mackenzie gratefully acknowledge financial support from the grants INCITE09 204 155PR (XUGA) and FFI2010-19380 (MICINN); Martínez Caro from grant FFI2009-07308 (MICINN).