The use of videlicet in Early Modern slander depositions: A case of genre-specific grammaticalization

Trial proceedings and depositions are textual genres that create particular demands for speech marking in discourse. This study examines the use of the expository apposition marker videlicet in both a sample of Early Modern depositions of defamation and several electronic corpora. It finds that videlicet developed a grammaticalized quotative sense concurrent with its borrowing into English and, further, that this grammaticalized sense developed only in legal records. Considering the evolution of videlicet shows us how functionality evolves to fit a particular set of generic needs. Videlicet provides a case of grammaticalization restricted to a single register, and can therefore be instructive about the diffusion of grammaticalized forms across genres and about the intersection of grammaticalization and code-switching.