“People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?” ― P.D. James, Innocent Blood
How may you discern this phrase? It seemed like maybe a prepositional phrase. Or maybe it may seem like a parenthetical phrase, or discourse marker? I think I thought prepositional phrases place information on location like Near the ocean. Near the ocean, we ran. I think near the ocean seems like a prepositional phrase that may modify where they ran placing information on location. In after all, what may this modify? After all of that running, we went home. Something like this I may get, a prepositional phrase maybe on when, after maybe placing information on location in time.
Answer
After all plays several roles.
Semantically it means approximately, "taking everything into consideration" or "in the final analysis".
In its internal form, without regard to its context, it is a prepositional phrase; all is a "fused-head determiner" (CGEL), a determiner which 'stands for' the omitted noun which it modifies and thus acts itself as a noun = (approximately) everything.
Within the sentence it acts syntactically as a supplemental clausal modifier—that is, an adverbial modifying the entire clause to which it is subordinated—and it is external to the clause, not integrated into its structure.
Within the discourse of which this sentence is a part, it acts as a discourse marker, signalling a change of direction: the speaker acknowledges that she is bringing something unexpected into the discourse, but insists that it is nonetheless relevant.
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