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I need to write my Master's thesis in English but I often find myself repeating words such as "hence", "thus" and "however". I suspect resouces like word banks exist to help novice writers like me but I don't now how to call this kind of words and hence I cannot look them up on the Internet. Does anyone know the term I am looking for and, maybe, know of any such resource i could use?
Thanks.
They belong to the category of adverbs. But they function as adjuncts, or more technically, connective adjuncts.
The main function of connective adjuncts is to connect two utterances while expressing the semantic relationship between them. There are four main types of connection that be expressed: additive, contrast, causal, and temporal.
Note also, adjuncts are not necessarily realized by adverbs; they can also be realized by:
prepositional phrases:by the way, on the top of that
adjective phrases: last of all, better still
finite clauses: that is to say, what is more
and non-finite clauses: to sum up, to cap it all.
