Tag Questions in English : The First Century  

Oleh:

Tottie, Gunnel ; Hoffmann, Sebastian

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of English Linguistics (Full Text) vol. 37 no. 2 (Jun. 2009), page 130-161.
Topik: tag questions; language change; historical pragmatics; negation; discourse; polarity; do-support; corpus linguistics; drama as data; spoken interaction; authorial styles; meter
Fulltext: Vol 37, no 2, page 130-161.pdf (399.04KB)

Isi artikel

This study charts the early history of canonical tag questions in English (e.g., It is cold, isn’t it?) focusing on the sixteenth century and using drama texts as a source. By means of semi-automated retrieval from computerized sources, 136 instances were collected. They were then analyzed in context to ascertain polarity, choice of operator and subject, meter and authorship, and especially pragmatic functions. Even at this early stage, tag questions had functions beyond asking for confirmation, such as expressing speaker attitude, challenging an interlocutor, or issuing directives. Cautious comparisons are made with Present-day English conversational use. The importance of modal verbs and do-support for the emergence of canonical tag questions is discussed, but it is argued that the rise of not as the sole sentence negator in English is the most important single factor in the emergence of canonical tag questions.

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