The combination "undoubtedly... but" as a means of explicating intra-textual connections

The article is devoted to the analysis of the usage of the combination "undoubtedly...but" in texts of various functional styles and genres as a textual connector, comparing its functioning in the text and in the sentence. The aim of the work was to identify the specifics of this unit, its semantic characteristics, mechanisms of formation, and the nature of the expounded relationships between parts of the text. Attention is given to the mechanism of forming this textual connector, its semantics, and the relationships between the parts of the text, in the construction of which the connector participates. Furthermore, the phenomenon of grammaticalization is examined in the context of analyzing the etymology of the textual connector "undoubtedly...but," revealing features that suggest the need to revise approaches to the phenomenon of grammaticalization, related to the inclusion in the connector of not only significant parts of speech but also function words, as well as introductory-modal words. In analyzing these features of the textual connector "undoubtedly...but," the following research methods were applied: a traditional descriptive method, including techniques of observation, generalization, and systematization of linguistic phenomena, and techniques of contextual analysis. The methodological basis of the research consists of works devoted to grammaticalization and textual connectors, including the works of representatives of the Far Eastern syntactic school in the field of function words. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that it provides a detailed analysis of the features of the functioning of the phrase "undoubtedly...but" as a textual connector in contemporary texts of different functional styles and genres for the first time. It has been established that the textual connector "undoubtedly...but" has a two-element morphological structure, formed on the basis of the word "undoubtedly" (which can function in different contexts as an adjective in the short form, an adverb, and an introductory-modal word) and the conjunction "but," which determines the functional possibilities of the connector. In the text, it is used for contrasting situations, in which the speaker's judgments are partially refuted, supplemented, or revealed from a different angle, while limiting the unambiguity of the positive or negative evaluation of these situations or phenomena. This is related to the implementation of a specific communicative strategy of the speaker. The results of this research should serve as a basis for further investigations in the field of textual connectors and the phenomenon of grammaticalization, and may also be presented as a dictionary entry for the "Dictionary of Function Words of the Russian Language."