Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: comment clauses, parentheticals, and pragmatic markers
- 2 Semantic and syntactic development of pragmatic markers
- 3 Processes of change
- 4 Comment clauses with say
- 5 I mean
- 6 Comment clauses with see
- 7 If you will and as it were
- 8 Comment clauses with look
- 9 What's more and what else
- 10 Epistemic/evidential parentheticals – I gather and I find
- 11 Concluding remarks
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
4 - Comment clauses with say
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: comment clauses, parentheticals, and pragmatic markers
- 2 Semantic and syntactic development of pragmatic markers
- 3 Processes of change
- 4 Comment clauses with say
- 5 I mean
- 6 Comment clauses with see
- 7 If you will and as it were
- 8 Comment clauses with look
- 9 What's more and what else
- 10 Epistemic/evidential parentheticals – I gather and I find
- 11 Concluding remarks
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the common verb of communication, say. Since, as Shinzato notes (2004), mental verbs (such as think) and speech act verbs (such as say) are two sides of the same coin, it comes of no surprise that verbs of communication can function parenthetically as comment clauses, comparable to the functioning of mental verbs as “epistemic parentheticals” (see §10.2). Below is pragmatic say in a number of different parenthetical constructions that will be discussed in this chapter – (I) say, say, I daresay, (as) you say, and that is to say:
(1) a. “I say, do you suppose they charged us enough? Sixpence seems so little …” (1991 Elgin, All the Sweet Promises [BNC]).
Enjoy it to the full, I say, and don't feel guilty (1991 Country Living [BNC]).
Spoilt brats, I say. Money doesn't grow on trees (1993 Maitland, Cathedral [BNC]).
b. Say, you've got two friends, one Catholic and one Protestant (1991 Hot Press [BNC]).
Yet it is not the reality of a naturalistic drama, such as we would find in, say, Ibsen or Chekhov (1991 Rendle, So You Want to Be an Actor? [BNC]).
It would have been a different matter at Oxford Circus, say (1992 Vine, King Solomon's Carpet [BNC]).
c. You would like, I daresay, if I could give you a clear and definite policy (1978 Ramsden, The Age of Balfour and Baldwin 1902–1940 [BNC]).
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- Information
- The Comment Clause in EnglishSyntactic Origins and Pragmatic Development, pp. 73 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008