Publications

Publication details [#17460]

Brinton, Laurel J. 2001. From matrix clause to pragmatic marker: The history of look-forms. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2 (2) : 177–199.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/jhp

Annotation

The interpersonal pragmatic markers ( now) look ( here), look you, lookee, lookahere, and lookit are shown to be the result of originally free matrix clauses which become syntactically fixed, are reanalyzed as sentence adjuncts, and undergo internal coalescence, a process which began in the seventeenth century. Their development is considered an instance of grammaticalization exhibiting most, though not all, of the characteristics of the process. A new grammaticalization cline is proposed to account for the uni- directionality of the development.