The role of pragmatic function in the grammaticalization of English general extenders

Maryann Overstreet
Abstract

In a number of recent studies, developments in the structure of English general extenders (e.g. and stuff (like that), or something (like that)) have been investigated from the perspective of grammaticalization. These developments have mostly been described in terms of formal changes as a result of processes identified as morphosyntactic reanalysis, phonological attrition and decategorialization. In this study, I first describe the impact of these changes on the structure of general extenders, confirming the usefulness of the basic grammaticalization framework as a way of accounting for developments in linguistic expressions (such as discourse markers or pragmatic markers) that are not considered to be grammatical markers in the traditional sense. I then use a more recent version of the grammaticalization framework to investigate the extent to which general extenders have developed meanings that can be described as subjective (speaker-oriented) and intersubjective (addressee-oriented). In this development, general extenders have come to be used as hedges on expectations of informativeness and accuracy, primarily involving subjective meanings, and as indicators of positive and negative politeness strategies, which carry intersubjective meanings. In this analysis, pragmatic functions are shown to have a significant role in the linguistic changes associated with grammaticalization.

Keywords:
Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Aijmer, Karin
(1985) What happens at the end of our utterances? The use of utterance-final tags introduced by And and Or . In Ole Togeby (ed.), Papers from the Eighth Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Copenhagen: Copenhagen University, Institut für Philologie, pp. 366-389.Google Scholar
(2002) English Discourse Particles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) Understanding Pragmatic Markers Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Aijmer, Karin, and Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen
(2011) Pragmatic markers. In Jan Zienkowski, Jan-Ola Östman, and Jef Verschueren (eds.), Discursive Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 223-243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ball, Catherine, and Mira Ariel
(1978) “Or something, etc.”. Penn Review of Linguistics 3: 35-45.Google Scholar
Barsalou, Lawrence
(1983) Ad hoc categories. Memory and Cognition 11: 211-227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benveniste, Émile
(1958 [1971]) Subjectivity in language. In Mary Elizabeth Meek (Trans.), Problems in General Linguistics. Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, pp. 223-230.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan
(1999) Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
(1972) Degree Words. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boye, Kasper, and Peter Harder
(2012) A usage-based theory of grammatical status and grammaticalization. Language 88: 1-44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brautigan, Richard
(1967) Trout Fishing in America New York: Dell.Google Scholar
Brems, Lieselotte
(2004) Measure noun constructions: Degrees of delexicalization and grammaticalization. In Karin Aijmer, and Bengt Altenberg (eds.), Advances in Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 249-265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brinton, Laurel
(2006) Pathways in the development of pragmatic markers in English. In Ans van Kemenade, and Bettelou Los (eds.), The Handbook of the History of English. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 306-334. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) The Comment Clause in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson
(1987) Politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burns, Robert
(1795 [1859]) “A Man’s a Man for a’ that”. The Complete Works of Robert Burns. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, p. 302.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan
(2003) Mechanisms of change in grammaticalization: The role of frequency. In Brian Joseph, and Richard Janda (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 602-623. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carroll, Ruth
(2007) Lists in letters: NP-lists and general extenders in early English correspondence. In Isabel Moskowich-Spiegel, and Begoña Crespo-García (eds.), Bells Chiming from the Past. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 37-53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Historical English phraseology and the extender tag. Selim 15: 7-37.Google Scholar
Channell, Joanna
(1994) Vague Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny
(2007) Discourse variation, grammaticalisation and stuff like that. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11: 155-193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cortés Rodríguez, Luis
(2006) Los elementos de final de serie enumerativa del tipo ‘y todo eso, o cosas así, y tal etc’: Perspectiva interactiva. Boletín de Lingüística 18.26: 102-129.Google Scholar
Denis, Derek
(2011) Innovators and innovation: Tracking the innovators of and stuff in York English. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 17: 61-70.Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth, and Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen
(eds.) (2011) Grammaticalization, pragmaticalization and/or (inter)subjectification: Methodological issues for the study of discourse markers. Thematic issue. Linguistics 49: 2. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dines, Elizabeth
(1980) Variation in discourse – ‘and stuff like that.’ Language in Society 1: 13-31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dubois, Sylvie
(1992) Extension particles, etc. Language Variation and Change 4: 179-203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ediger, Anne
(1995) An analysis of set-marking tags in the English language. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Erman, Britt
(1995) Grammaticalization in progress: The case of or something . In Inger Moen, Hanne Simonsen, and Helga Lødrup (eds.), Papers from the XVth Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Oslo: University of Oslo, Department of Linguistics, pp. 136-147.Google Scholar
Evison, Jane, Michael McCarthy, and Anne O’Keeffe
(2007) ‘Looking out for love and all the rest of it’: Vague category markers as shared social space. In Joan Cutting (ed.), Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan pp. 182-197. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, Julieta, and Aziz Yuldashev
(2011) Variation in the use of general extenders and stuff in instant messaging interactions. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 2610-2626. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Bruce
(1999) What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics 31: 931-952 DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2010) Discourse markers. In Louise Cummings (ed.), Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. London: Routledge, pp. 125-129.Google Scholar
Ghesquière, Lobke, and Freek Van de Velde
(2011) A corpus-based account of the development of English such and Dutch zulk: Identification, intensification and (inter)subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 22: 765-797. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
(1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Grice, H.P
(1975) Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole, and Jerry Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press, pp. 41-58.Google Scholar
Guthrie, Anna
(1994) Quotative tense shift in American English authority-encounter narratives. M.A. Thesis, California State University, San Bernadino, California.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael, and Ruqaiya Hasan
(1976) Cohesion in English. London: Longman.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Hasselgren, Angela
(2002) Learner corpora and language testing. In Sylviane Granger, Joseph Hung, and Stephanie Petch-Tyson (eds.), Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 143-173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd
(2003) Grammaticalization. In Brian Joseph, and Richard Janda (eds.), Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 575-601. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul
(1991) On some principles of grammaticalization. In Elizabeth Traugott, and Bernd Heine (eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization, vol. 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 17-36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010) Grammaticalization. In Louise Cummings (ed.), Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. London: Routledge, pp. 180-182.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul, and Elizabeth Traugott
(2003) Grammaticalization. (2nd edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail
(1990) List-construction as a task and resource. In George Psathas (ed.), Interaction Competence. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, pp. 63-92.Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas, and Irma Taavitsainen
(2013) English Historical Pragmatics Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas, and Yael Ziv
(eds.) (1998) Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kytö, Merja, and Jonathan Culpeper
(2006) A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760. Uppsala: Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George
(1972) Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. Papers from the 8th Regional Meeting of the Chicago linguistic society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 183-228.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin
(1973) The logic of politeness: Or, minding your P’s and Q’s. Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 292-305.Google Scholar
Lauwereyns, Shizuka
(2002) Hedges in Japanese conversation: The influence of age, sex and formality. Language Variation and Change 14: 239-259. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Lehman, Christian
(1993) Theoretical implications of grammaticalization phenomena. In William Foley (ed.), The Role of Theory in Language Description. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 315-340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Gene
(1994) Responsive list construction. Language and Social Psychology 13: 20-33. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Levey, Stephen
(2007) The next generation: Aspects of grammatical variation in the speech of some London preadolescents. Ph.D. Dissertation, Queen Mary University of London.Google Scholar
(2012) General extenders and grammaticalization: Insights from London preadolescents. Applied Linguistics DOI logoGoogle Scholar