Chapter published in:
Corpora and the Changing Society: Studies in the evolution of EnglishEdited by Paula Rautionaho, Arja Nurmi and Juhani Klemola
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 96] 2020
► pp. 251–275
The development and pragmatic function of a non-inference marker
That is not to say (that)
Laurel J. Brinton | University of British Columbia, Vancouver
That is not to say (that) is an introductory
clause refuting an inference that could be drawn from the previous discourse; it often
occurs in a negative context (with a positive reading) and is characteristic of written
genres, with lowest frequency in fiction. The earliest examples date from the 16th
century but the next examples found date from the mid- to late-19th century. The gap in
the corpus data may be explained by the predominantly fiction/drama make-up of available
corpora. The development of that is not to say (that) is not an
entirely prototypical case of grammaticalization as certain parameters (loss of
that, contracted forms) are inconclusive and there are no ‘lexical’
uses of the form and hence no ‘divergence’.
Published online: 08 April 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.96.10bri
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.96.10bri