Re: Discourse Analysis term for "however"

Dr. Ibrahim,

I agree that it is a contrastive conjunct in this usage, but I am not a
linguist, and I get the term from Quirk and Greenbaum (see Ron Hardin's
10 Nov. post in this thread). But it is not directly contrasting the
entire sections of the discourse so much as it is contrasting "this"
and "that" in which

this = "What I just talked about"
that = "what I am about to talk about"

and the sentence would reduce to
"This, however, is not as important as that."

- Paul

.