The Evolution of Pragmatic Markers in English
Pathways of Change

This is a detailed diachronic study of a set of English pragmatic markers, providing insights concerning their syntactic and semantic development.

Laurel J. Brinton (Author)

9781107129054, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 August 2017

344 pages, 18 b/w illus. 28 tables
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.67 kg

Based on a rich set of historical data, this book traces the development of pragmatic markers in English, from hwæt in Old English and whilom in Middle English to whatever and I'm just saying in present-day English. Laurel J. Brinton carefully maps the syntactic origins and development of these forms, and critically examines postulated unilineal pathways, such as from adverb to conjunction to discourse marker, or from main clause to parenthetical. The book sets case studies within a larger examination of the development of pragmatic markers as instances of grammaticalization or pragmaticalization. The characteristics of pragmatic markers - as primarily oral, syntactically optional, sentence-external, grammatically indeterminate elements - are revised in the context of scholarship on pragmatic markers over the last thirty or more years.

1. Pragmatic markers: synchronic and diachronic
Part I. From Lexical Item to Pragmatic Marker: 2. Old English hwæt
3. Middle English whilom
4. Modern English only and if only
Part II. From Clausal Construction to Pragmatic Marker: 5. Epistemic parentheticals
6. I / you admit and admittedly
7. Forms of say: that said and I'm just saying
8. Two politeness comment clauses: if I may say so and for what it's worth
9. What is more and whatever
10. Concluding remarks: pathways of change
Appendix: list of corpora and text collections
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF]