Chapter 12
The diachronic origin of English I mean and
German ich meine
The pragmatic markers ich meine
in German and I mean in English are similar, though
not equivalent, in the main aspects of their meaning and function.
Both have also been widely studied, yet research on German
ich meine has focused on modern data and
functions. From a diachronic perspective, we investigate whether the
matrix clause function, as claimed in the literature for spoken
modern German, is a likely origin of the pragmatic marker or
whether, as in English, a derivation from I mean
followed by a phrasal complement seems more likely. Furthermore, we
assess how well the origins of the pragmatic functions of I
mean can be sufficiently described as
constructionalization rather than grammaticalization and what role
the left periphery plays in this constructionalization process.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical framework
- 3.
I mean and ich meine in modern
English and German
- 3.1
I mean in modern English
- 3.2
Ich meine in modern written and spoken German
- 4.The diachronic development of I mean and
ich mein(e)
- 4.1The development of the pragmatic marker I
mean
- 4.2The development of the pragmatic marker ich
meine
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
Corpora and online dictionaries
-
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