The Meaning of Utterance-Final Even  

Oleh:

Kim, Min-Joo ; Jahnke, Nathan

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of English Linguistics (Full Text) vol. 39 no. 1 (Mar. 2011), page 36-64.
Topik: even; additive scalar focus particle; mirative; elaborative; corrective; meaning change; implicature; syntactic position
Fulltext: Kim_Min-Joo, vol. 39 issue 1 March 2011. p. 36-64.pdf (411.64KB)

Isi artikel

This article takes up a relatively understudied phenomenon in English wherein the additive scalar focus particle even occurs following its focus, typically in utterance-final (UF) position. We show that this UF incarnation of even is not a simple variant of its prefocal (PF) counterpart. Four distinct functions of UF-EVEN are identified: (1) the mirative, (2) the elaborative, (3) the simple additive, and (4) the simple corrective. Building on Traugott’s theory of semantic change, the authors present an analysis that outlines the developmental path of UF-EVEN: all its functions are claimed to originate from PF-EVEN’s meaning, although some are less directly related to it. In addition, the authors demonstrate that UF-EVEN shares some of its developmental paths with discourse markers like actually and in fact, suggesting that it has taken on the function of a sentential adverb. The article ends with discussing repercussions for the theory of meaning change and its conventionalization.

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