On the rise of types of clause-final pragmatic markers in English
Elizabeth Closs Traugott | Stanford University
Much work on pragmatic markers in the history of English has been devoted to expressions used clause-initially at “left periphery”. By contrast, this study provides an account in broad outlines of the incremental development of pragmatic markers in clause-final “right periphery” position. Particular attention is paid to the rise of comment clauses, question tags, general extenders, and retrospective contrastive markers. Traditional characterizations of pragmatic markers, such as occurrence primarily at left periphery and with prosodic breaks are critiqued.
Keywords: question tags, retrospective contrastive markers, comment clauses, general extenders, periphery
Published online: 16 June 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.17.1.02tra
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.17.1.02tra
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