They account for 42.9 per cent of the total number of
hedges. Table 2 provides the results of frequency counts
for the next 13 hedges (frequency between 1.8 and 5 per
cent of all hedges) which account for 43.5 per cent of all
hedges. The least frequent hedges included those mentioned
between 1 and 9 times and thus below the frequency of
1.8 %. They include the following words and phrases:
apparently, basically, fairly, largely, possibly, seemingly,
somehow, virtually, slightly, supposed to be, intends to, as
if, more or less, so called and in a bit different way. About
half of them occurred just once. Some of them, like
basically, are more characteristic of spoken discourse and
naturally tend to be less frequent in writing. Also the least
frequent hedges are either longer words or phrases; the
most frequent hedges are mainly very short words