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Abstract

Abstract

This paper deals with the potential grammaticalization of English and into epistemic sentence adverbs in analogy to . They can occur in adverb-like positions and functions in informal language use, e.g. , often with the pronoun omitted. But, given that no diachronic development is attested, to what extent does their usage indicate innovation or an emerging convention of adverbial ? How are they differentiated from ? Following up on previous corpus-based and experimental research, I present findings from two small experiments. Experiment 1 elicits the morphosyntactic interpretation (clausal vs. adverbial) with ratings of structurally different paraphrases; Experiment 2 aims at the semantic interpretation of epistemic stance. The results provide little evidence of conventionalization of adverbial , and also no clear signs of semantic or pragmatic differentiation. I conclude that weak conventions leave room for variability, and propose that these forms have a proclivity to be continuously re-innovated as micro-steps on a grammaticalization path, but this is not enough to drive change beyond existing conventions.

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2025-01-16
2025-02-15

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Potential grammaticalization of epistemic phrases
John Benjamins ; https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.23021.lor
/content/journals/10.1075/fol.23021.lor
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: grammaticalization mechanisms ; conventionalization ; adverbialization ; epistemic phrases ; potential grammaticalization

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