6.2 Previous Work on ProTags in the History of English

Beyond passing mention in a handful of works, the ProTag construction as it appears in historical varieties of English was not subject to systematic investigation before Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) examined data from three Early Modern English (EModE) playwrights: Shakespeare, Jonson, and Marlowe. Of the three playwrights whose works were considered in Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020), Jonson was the most prolific user of ProTags. Interestingly, Tottie and Hoffmann (Reference Tottie and Hoffmann2009) identified Jonson as the most prolific user of question tags in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection in an investigation of question tag use in the sixteenth century.

Earlier works tended to characterise the ProTag construction as some kind of pronoun repetition for emphasis, often describing it as a ‘doubling’ construction restricted to subject pronouns (see, for example, Einenkel Reference Einenkel1916: 132; Partridge Reference Partridge1953: 29; Schlauch Reference Schlauch1959: 99; Visser Reference Visser1963: 56). Examples such as (8a) and (8b) have been cited as examples of ‘subject doubling’.

1. 1. a. These are my brothers consorts these, these are his Cumrades, … (Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, 1616; cited in Partridge Reference Partridge1953: 29)

   2. b. Come, let’s go: this is one of my brother’s humours, this. (Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, 1616; cited in Visser Reference Visser1963: 56)

However, Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) demonstrated that the subject doubling characterisation is not accurate: the anchor point and the ProTag are not required to be identical (doubled), as the examples in (9) make clear.

1. 1. a. S’lud, it’s a Hogs Cheeke and Puddings in a Peuter field this (Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, 1616)

   2. b. They are prettie waking dreames; these. (Ben Jonson, John Marston & George Chapman, Eastward Ho!, 1605)

Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) also showed that it was not accurate to claim that the ProTag construction necessarily involved repetition of a subject pronoun: In (10), the anchor point is the direct object thee rather than the subject I. Example (10) also provides further evidence that ProTags do not involve doubling of a pronoun. Despite both referring to second person singular, the anchor point and ProTag appear in different cases and thus have different forms.

As in PDBE, anchor points are overwhelmingly subjects in this sample of EModE, but Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) observe that direct object anchor points are possible, as (10) exemplifies, though the latter are even more rarely attested than in PDBE.

A property that the ProTag construction in EModE does not share with its PDBE counterpart according to the Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) study is that the most commonly used demonstrative ProTag is this. Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) report that the EModE sample contains more examples of singular demonstrative ProTag this than that (15.6% vs. 4.9% of all ProTags), in contrast to the proportions reported in Mycock (Reference Mycock2019) for PDBE: 22.2% singular demonstrative ProTag this vs. 56.2% singular demonstrative ProTag that.

Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) examined data from three EModE playwrights. While this provides a useful snapshot of the ProTag construction in that period, a fuller exploration of the ProTag construction from a historical perspective demands a larger corpus investigation.

6.3 Methodology

The greatest challenge when it comes to the investigation of the ProTag construction in earlier varieties of English is the fact that it is predominantly a feature of spoken English. Contemporary drama, and in particular comedy, is identified in Culpeper and Kytö (Reference Culpeper and Kytö2000) as the closest available approximant to speech for earlier varieties of English. The present study takes as its corpus the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection. This collection of 3,874 plays spans the late thirteenth to the early twentieth century and comprises approximately 56 million words of verse and prose (Hoffmann Reference Hoffmann2006).

Searching for ProTags in corpora always represents a challenge. The flexibility of their position affords little opportunity to distinguish ProTags from other uses of pronouns. In order to keep the number of search results to a size with which it was feasible to work, we searched for all demonstrative pronouns that were followed by some form of punctuation. This approach does not guarantee that all demonstrative ProTags in a corpus will have been identified. It is rather, out of necessity, a conservative approach to isolating examples of ProTag use. Searches were carried out using Corpus Query Language (CQL) syntax. The corpus was automatically tagged with the English TreeTagger Part-of-Speech Tag Set (Marcus et al. Reference Marcus, Santorini and Marcinkiewicz1993) with modifications by Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al. Reference Kilgarriff, Baisa, Bušta, Jakubíček, Kovář, Michelfeit, Rychlý and Suchomel2014).

All results were downloaded into MS Excel spreadsheets and checked to determine that they were examples of ProTags. We excluded ‘true’ demonstrative uses of pronouns, which were clear from the context or an accompanying stage direction; instances of interruption; cases consistent with incomplete production of an utterance/phrase/word (stammering, death throes, etc.); and instances where it was impossible to determine whether the pronoun was being used as a ProTag or was rather an instance of left dislocation of a pronoun with respect to the following phrase/sentence/utterance.

6.4 Results

6.4.1 Overview

In total, we identified 1,155 examples of demonstrative ProTag use in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection. This included a number of examples used in translations into English from other languages. To mitigate the possible influence of the original language and its features in such cases, we excluded all examples from works that were clearly translations. This left 1,037 examples of demonstrative ProTag constructions used in 675 individual works by a total of 284 writers.Footnote ⁵ The earliest example attested was from 1594Footnote ⁶ (11a) and the latest – excluding reprints of earlier works – was from 1925 (11b). This gives us a span from the late sixteenth century to the early twentieth century.

1. 1. a. Ill tidings for my Lady these. (Robert Wilson, The coblers prophesie, 1594)

   2. b. Very striking poems those, don’t you think, Miss Taylor? (John Drinkwater, Robert Burns, 1925)

Within the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection, the most prolific users of demonstrative ProTags are those listed in Table 6.1. As the dates of birth and death show, these writers’ lives span from the late sixteenth century through to the mid-nineteenth century.

Table 6.1The most prolific users of the demonstrative ProTag construction in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection

Table 6.1Long description

The table provides information about five writers, their years of birth and death, and the number of demonstrative pronouns or ProTags identified in their works. The information is given in three columns with the aforementioned headers. The data from left to right in the rows is as follows:

• For Ben Jonson, the corresponding data is 1572 to 1637 and 43.

• For Thomas D’Urfey, the corresponding data is 1653 to 1723 and 40.

• For Aphra Behn, the corresponding data is 1640 to 1689 and 37.

• For John O’Keeffe, the corresponding data is 1747 to 1833 and 28.

• For W. T. Moncrieff, the corresponding data is 1794 to 1857 and 19.

Using the estimated word counts provided in Hoffmann (Reference Hoffmann2006), which examined tag questions in Early and Late Modern English as attested in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection, it is possible to calculate the frequency of ProTag constructions per million words in the corpus; see Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1 The occurrence of demonstrative ProTag constructions in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection, including the frequency per million words (pmw); N = 1,037

Figure 6.1Long description

The vertical axis marks the period from top to bottom. The labeled periods are up to 1500, 1500-1549, 1550-1599, 1600-1649, 1650-1699, 1700-1749, 1750-1799, 1800-1849, 1850-1899, and after 1900. The horizontal axis marks frequency per million words, ranging from 0 to 35. The constructions are plotted as horizontal bars, and the data from top to bottom is as follows:

• During 1550-1599, the corresponding value is 1.

• During 1600-1649, the corresponding value is 13.

• During 1650-1699, the corresponding value is 26.

• During 1700-1749, the corresponding value is 23.

• During 1750-1799, the corresponding value is 24.

• During 1800-1849, the corresponding value is 20.

• During 1850-1899, the corresponding value is 32.

• During 1900, the corresponding value is 28.

As Figure 6.1 shows, frequency counts are modest in the corpus – far smaller than for tag questions in the same corpus (Tottie & Hoffmann Reference Tottie and Hoffmann2009). The demonstrative ProTag construction is rare, but it is attested from the late sixteenth century onwards. From a frequency count of 1 pmw in the period 1550–1599, there is an increase to 26 pmw a century later. Relative frequency remains fairly stable from that point until another increase to 32 pmw in the period 1850–1899. Finally, a slight dip in frequency to 28 pmw is recorded for the period starting 1900, though it must be noted that for this period only 21 examples were identified and the latest recorded example is 1925, so this figure is not fully comparable to those for preceding periods.

6.4.2 The ProTags

We find the same range of examples for each demonstrative ProTag in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection as has been identified previously in PDBE (Mycock Reference Mycock2019) and in the smaller sample of EModE data examined in Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020). For singular demonstratives, we find ProTags this and that used with both overt (12a–b, 13a–b) and covert anchor points (12c–d, 13c–d).

1. 1. a. ’Tis good tabacco this! (Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, 1616)

   2. b. This is a fellow of some sense, this: come, good Uncle. (Anonymous, The London prodigal, 1664)

   3. c. A plaguy dull fellow this, that can sleep in so good Company as we are. (Aphra Behn, The younger brother, 1696)

   4. d. Awfully good place to meal in, this, don’t you find? (H. V. Esmond, The wilderness, 1901)

1. 1. a. oh take heed sir, ‘Tis against nature that, (Thomas Middleton, The widdow, 1652)

   2. b. it must be a queer dress that! (Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley, Ernest Mountjoy, 1844)

   3. c. A very pleasant fellow that. (Thomas D’Urfey, A common-wealth of women, 1686)

   4. d. Very barbarous that, in my Mind. (Nicholas Rowe, The biter, 1705)

Examples (12a) and (13a–b) show that it is not accurate to describe the ProTag construction as involving doubling: the anchor point and ProTag need not be identical in form. This is even more clearly illustrated by the examples in (14), in which the demonstrative ProTag appears to co-refer with a third person singular male personal pronoun.

1. 1. a. He’s a strange chap, this! (Henry J. Byron, War to the knife, 1866)

   2. b. He’s a deuced good servant that, if he wouldn’t talk so much. (Charles James Mathews, Patter versus Clatter, 1881)

Both plural demonstratives are employed as ProTags in the corpus. These is used with both overt (15a–b) and covert (15c–d) anchor points. By contrast, those is only attested with a covert anchor point (16a–c).Footnote ⁷

1. 1. a. These are the trophies of your treachery, these. (Shackerley Marmion, A fine companion, 1633)

   2. b. Sure, they’ar’ caues Of sleepe, these; or els they’ar’graues! (Ben Jonson, Oberon, 1616)

   3. c. A Pleasant Couple these! (Colley Cibber, Woman’s wit, 1697)

   4. d. Uncommon talents these. (Thomas Vaughan, The hotel, 1776)

1. 1. a. Good Lads those, They kill themselves: Give me such Foes. (Sir Richard Fanshawe, To love only for love’s sake, 1670)

   2. b. Mighty pretty Eyes those --- mighty pretty Eyes truly (Christopher Bullock, Woman is a riddle, 1717)

   3. c. Strange girls, those! (W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, 1821)

The relative frequency of each demonstrative ProTag varies over time; see Figure 6.2.Footnote ⁸

Figure 6.2 The relative frequency in percentages of each demonstrative ProTag in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection

Figure 6.2Long description

The vertical axis marks the period from top to bottom. The labeled periods are 1600-1649, 1650-1699, 1700-1749, 1750-1799, 1800-1849, and 1850-1899. The horizontal axis marks a percentage range from 0 to 100. The four pronouns this, that, these, and those are indicated by solid, empty, shaded, and light shaded horizontal bars, respectively. The frequency of using the pronoun this decreased over time from 63, 79, 75, 68, and then to 52%. The frequency of using the pronoun that increased from 25 to 40% over time. The use of the pronoun these decreased from 11 to 6% over time. The use of those increased from 0 to 1, 2, and then to 1%.

The most noticeable trend shown in Figure 6.2 is a decrease in the frequency of ProTag this alongside an increase in the frequency of ProTag that.

We examined the usage of the four demonstrative ProTags by author in the corpus. A large number of authors use a demonstrative singular ProTag (this or that) but do not use either demonstrative plural ProTag (these or those) in their works: 237 in total (excluding multi-authored or anonymous works). A small number of authors – 15 in total – only use a plural demonstrative ProTag; their works do not include singular demonstrative ProTags. These authors are not confined to a particular period. Their dates of birth range from the mid-sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century.

6.4.3 Anchor Points

Demonstrative ProTags have overt and covert anchor points in the corpus. Their relative frequency exhibits variation over time. Figure 6.3 shows that covert anchor points increased from 45.2% in 1600–1649 to 93.4% in 1700–1749, before dropping slightly to 89.1%–91.7% in the subsequent 100+ years. ProTag those is only attested with a covert anchor point in the corpus; see (16).

Figure 6.3 The relative frequency of overt compared to covert anchor points in demonstrative ProTag constructions in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection

Figure 6.3Long description

The horizontal axis labels the period from 1600-1649, 1650-1699, 1700-1749, 1750-1799, 1800-1849, and 1850-1899. The horizontal axis marks relative frequency as percentage from 0 to 100. The horizontal bars are divided into two segments: the shaded part denotes covert and the unshaded part denotes overt. Except for the period 1600 to 1649, the use of overt exceeds the covert. In the remaining period, the covert ranges from around 70 to 90% and the remaining share is for overt.

It is an interesting question whether the two trends identified – the increase in frequency of ProTag that and the increase in frequency of covert anchor points – are linked.Footnote ⁹ The relative frequency of each ProTag occurring with a covert anchor point is represented in Figure 6.4.

Figure 6.4 The relative frequency of (i) each ProTag with a covert anchor point and (ii) all ProTags with a covert anchor point compared to overt anchor points in demonstrative ProTag constructions in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection

Figure 6.4Long description

The vertical axis marks the relative frequency, ranging from 0 to 100%. The horizontal axis marks the periods from 1600-1649, 1650-1699, 1700-1749, 1750-1799, 1800-1849, and 1850-1899. The line graphs are styled in different patterns, which include:

• Solid line with a solid dot for this

• Solid broken line with a solid dot for that

• Line with a shaded dot for these

• Broken line with a shaded dot for those

• Solid dotted line with a solid diamond for all Protags

The relative frequency of this begins from 60%, peaks around 80%, remains constant around 80%, drops to 40%, and then rises to 60%. The relative frequency for all protags begins from 50%, rises steadily to around 80%, and reaches 90%. The relative frequency for that begins from around 20%, drops down to 10%, and then increases steadily, and peaks at around 48%. The relative frequency of these begins from around 19%, which gradually declines and maintains a steady state at around 8%. The relative frequency of those begins from around 0% and is almost a constant throughout the period.

If the increase in the frequency of covert anchor points were linked to the increasingly common occurrence of that in ProTag constructions, we would expect to see a consistently high proportion of instances of ProTag that with a covert anchor point over time. An increase in the relative frequency of ProTag that would then account for an increase in the overall relative frequency of covert anchor points. However, this is not what we find. The greatest increase in the relative frequency of covert anchor points comes between the periods 1600–1649 and 1650–1699, jumping from 45.2% to 75.1%. However, at the same time the number of ProTag constructions with a covert anchor point and ProTag that actually decreases from 26.9% to 15.9%. Furthermore, from the start to the end of the seventeenth century, the relative frequency of ProTag that falls: that accounts for 24.6% of all occurrences of ProTags in the period 1600–1649 but 17.7% in the period 1659–1699. By contrast, the relative frequency of ProTag this rose: from 64.4% in 1600–1649 to 78.5% in 1650–1699. Thus an increase in the relative frequency of ProTag that does not seem to be responsible for the general increase in covert anchor points that is observed.

When the anchor point is overt, its grammatical function is overwhelmingly subject (97.9%). Object anchor points are also attested – (17a–c) are examples – but are much rarer (2.1%).

1. 1. a. but you shall heare these_i in her excellent white bosome, these_i. (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1623)

   2. b. You mean it_i for an Insult this_i, you do. (James Thomson, Agamemnon, 1738)

   3. c. for I dare say you’l think it_i no unwise discourse this_i, nor ill argu’d. (M. Clifford, The rehearsal, 1672)

Object is the only grammatical function other than subject attested as an overt anchor point for a demonstrative ProTag in the corpus. This is the same finding reported for EModE in Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020).

All overt anchor points are pronouns. This is consistent with the possible topic-marking function of the ProTag that has been discussed previously (Mycock Reference Mycock2019; Mycock & Misson Reference Mycock and Misson2020).

6.4.4 Anchors

A variety of different possible anchors are attested in the corpus. Anchors can be phrases or full clauses; see the examples in (12), (13), (15), and (16). Most anchors are declaratives, but questions are also found:

1. 1. a. is’t not dark and dreadful proof Of madness this? (Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley, Eva, 1840)

   2. b. What call ye him, this? (John Skelton, Magnyfycence, 1856)

The anchor in demonstrative ProTag constructions in this corpus seldom includes a verb: over 82% of anchors include no verb form of any kind. Coupled with the tendency for the anchor point to be covert, this means that the anchor is infrequently a full clause. The anchor is never a clause when the ProTag is those: all anchors in those ProTag constructions are NPs (for example, very foolish reasons, good lads, and two short words).

Elements included in the anchor of a demonstrative ProTag construction provide an indication of its function, which is most commonly subjective, that is, speaker-oriented and strongly associated with the indication of the speaker’s attitude. Consistent with expressing the speaker’s attitude to a proposition, there are many examples of ProTag constructions which contain lexical items with inherently subjective meaning signalling speaker orientation such as dreadful, monstrous, pretty, and bad, as in (19).

1. 1. a. A dreadful affair this! (Thomas Morton, Secrets worth knowing, 1798)

   2. b. ’Tis monstrous, this. (Richard Brome, The Antipodes, 1640)

   3. c. a pretty Smile that; (Moses Browne, All-bedevil’d, 1723)

   4. d. Bad fellow that. (T. W. Robertson, Play, 1890)

The tendency is for ProTags to co-occur with positive evaluative expressions (45%) rather than negative (18%) or non-evaluative (37%) expressions. (This is true of each individual demonstrative ProTag as well as ProTags as a group.) The ten most common evaluative expressions, which are adjectives, are presented in Table 6.2.

Table 6.2The ten most common evaluative expressions that co-occur with demonstrative ProTags in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection

Note. +ve denotes a positive evaluative expression; −ve denotes a negative evaluative expression.

Table 6.2Long description

The table presents the number of times evaluative expressions are used with demonstrative pronouns (ProTags) in a dataset. The expressions are categorized by whether they are positive or negative. The table is divided into 6 columns, each with its headers, evaluative expressions, with ProTag this, that, these, those, and the total number. The data in the rows is filled from left to right as follows:

• For pretty, positive, the corresponding numbers are 49, 11, 1, 1, and 62.

• For good, positive, the corresponding numbers are 19, 21, 3, 1, and 44.

• For fine, positive, the corresponding numbers are 28, 11, 2, 2, and 43.

• For pleasant, positive, the corresponding numbers are 17, 4, 3, 0, and 24.

• For bad, negative, the corresponding numbers are 6, 7, 0, 1, and 14.

• For nice, positive, the corresponding numbers are 7, 4, 2, 0, and 13.

• For excellent, positive, the corresponding numbers are 8, 0, 3, 0, and 11.

• For well, positive, the corresponding numbers are 3, 6, 0, 0, and 9.

• For dreadful, negative, the corresponding numbers are 3, 3, 0, 0, and 6.

• For sad, negative, the corresponding numbers are 6, 0, 0, 0, and 6.

The adjectives with which ProTags co-occur mostly belong to the semantic type Value (good, bad, etc.) as identified in Dixon (Reference Dixon1977), with the majority of others belonging to the type Human Propensity (sad, honest, etc.), which Dixon (Reference Dixon1977: 74) notes can be applied to higher animals as well as humans. The presence of an intensifier is indicative of a strongly evaluative expression. In this corpus, ProTag constructions included intensifiers such as very, devilish, mighty, and damned.

Evaluative nominal expressions are also attested, though not as frequently; for example, whore (20a) and fool (20b).

1. 1. a. A Whore this! (Aphra Behn, The revenge, 1681)

   2. b. ’Tis a poor loving Fool, this; (Thomas D’Urfey, Love for money, 1691)

Compatible with their core subjective meaning, demonstrative ProTag constructions in this corpus regularly include lexical items that indicate speaker orientation. The tendency is for these evaluative expressions to be positive.

6.5 Discussion

The diachronic perspective which the examination of data from the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection affords us makes it clear that demonstrative ProTag constructions have been a durable feature of English since the early seventeenth century despite being relatively rare. All demonstratives are attested in use as ProTags in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection, with singular (this, that) far more common than plural (these, those) demonstrative ProTags (Figure 6.2). From first attestation in 1594, the occurrence of demonstrative ProTags in the corpus increases in the seventeenth century, then stabilises until the mid-nineteenth century when it undergoes another increase. Our findings support those reported in Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020), which indicated that the ProTag construction was a feature of EModE. They go further though, showing that the construction is present throughout the Modern English period. Frequency pmw counts are always very modest, reaching 32 pmw in the late nineteenth century, but the demonstrative ProTag construction persists as a feature despite neither making a semantic contribution nor having a classificatory or self-repair function. It is the pragmatic contribution which the presence of a ProTag makes that ensures its longevity.

Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) identified similarities and differences in the relative frequency of demonstrative ProTags in EModE compared to PDBE as reported in Mycock (Reference Mycock2019). A point of similarity is that plural demonstrative ProTags are far less frequently employed than singular ones in both varieties. A point of difference is the relative frequencies of the proximal and distal ProTags. ProTag this is more frequently attested than that in the EModE works of Jonson, Marlowe, and Shakespeare (67.9% compared to 21.4% of demonstrative ProTags). By contrast, Mycock (Reference Mycock2019) states that in PDBE that is more frequent than this (69.8% compared to 27.5%), an observation also made in other works on British English (Rühlemann Reference Rühlemann2007; Timmis Reference Timmis, Aijmer and Rühlemann2014). Figure 6.5 is a revised version of Figure 6.2 with data for PDBE, taken from Mycock (Reference Mycock2019), added for the purposes of comparison. The previous predominance of this reported in Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) is confirmed by the findings of the present corpus investigation, but our diachronic study is more revealing because we can pinpoint this change as being fairly recent, occurring in the twentieth century after a slow reduction in the relative frequency of the usage of this, which peaked in the period 1650–1699.

Figure 6.5 The relative frequency in percentages of each demonstrative ProTag in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection and in PDBE from the second half of the twentieth century as reported in Mycock (Reference Mycock2019)

Figure 6.5Long description

The horizontal axis marks relative frequency in percentage from 0 to 80. The vertical axis marks the period from 1600-1649, 1650-1699, 1700-1749, 1750-1799, 1800-1849, 1850-1899, and P D B E 1960. The protags this, that, these, and those are marked using solid, empty, dark shaded, and light shaded horizontal bars, respectively. The relative frequency of this varied from around 63% to a peak value of around 79%, with fluctuations, and then drops down to around 38% over time. The relative frequency of that begins from around 23%, rises gradually to around 30 to 40%, and then peaks at 70%. The relative frequency of these peaks at around 11%, and then declines gradually, fluctuates around 5 to 6%, and then declines to around 2%. The relative frequency of those begins from 0%, gradually increases to around 2%, peaks at around 3%, and then declines to around 1%.

What explanation can there be for this shift from the proximal to the distal in the demonstrative ProTag construction? Rühlemann (Reference Rühlemann2007) proposes that the more frequent use of ProTag that is due to a shift in deictic focus from speaker-origo towards listener-origo. However, the change we see in the use of demonstrative ProTags is more specific, involving as it does only singular demonstrative ProTags: there is no concurrent shift in the relative frequency of these compared to those. Figure 6.5 shows that the relative frequency of those never surpasses that of these, even in the twentieth century. If there is a shift of the deictic centre from speaker to addressee in the ProTag construction, it would be necessary to treat singular and plural demonstrative ProTags as being fundamentally different. This is a proposal not without merit. As noted in Section 6.4.2, authors who use plural demonstrative ProTags do not use either of the singular demonstrative ProTags, indicating what may be a fundamental difference between the two sets of demonstrative ProTags.Footnote ¹⁰

It is important not to lose sight of the wider context when considering the shift from dominance of this to that in the demonstrative ProTag construction. In PDE conversation, that is far more common than this. This can be used to refer to the preceding text, while that can be used to refer to the general situation. Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) propose that the ProTag construction has developed a discourse-oriented use in PDBE, which Narrog (Reference Narrog, Van Olmen, Cuyckens and Ghesquière2016) identifies as the final stage of grammaticalisation following speaker orientation and hearer orientation. Increase in the occurrence of the distal ProTag in the twentieth century may reflect the construction’s development of an additional discourse-oriented use to which that, with its capacity to refer to the general situation rather than just the immediately preceding text, is particularly well suited. Further research considering the relationship between each ProTag construction and the discourse in which it appears is required to test this hypothesis.

The types of anchor points and anchors that can appear in demonstrative ProTag constructions show a similar range of possibilities throughout the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection and in PDBE. In both, anchor points can be elided, along with verb forms. Overt anchor points are almost exclusively pronouns and therefore represent ‘old’ information. They bear the grammatical function subject and, far less frequently, object. Anchors are most often declarative, but interrogative anchors are also found.

The issue of interrogativity leads us to an interesting difference in function between ProTag constructions in PDBE and in our corpus. In PDBE, Mycock (Reference Mycock2019: 266) reports that ProTag constructions are not used with a questioning function: ‘I have found no evidence that ProTag constructions are used to seek/elicit information’. Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020: 393–4), on the other hand, do find some evidence of ProTag constructions being used with this function in their sample of EModE plays. Data from the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection support Mycock and Misson’s (Reference Mycock and Misson2020) findings. Notice in (21) that the addressee Pat provides the information that the captain seeks in response to the ProTag construction which the latter employed. Such data illustrate an intersubjective function that the ProTag construction once had, but which it apparently lost over time.

Mycock and Pang (Reference Mycock and Pang2021) identify the core meaning of a ProTag construction as being subjective in PDBE, stating that its occurrence serves to express/ reinforce the speaker’s commitment to a proposition p. An intersubjective meaning, on the other hand, encodes ‘the speaker’s attention to the self of the addressee … and his/her needs concerning the processing of the message’ (Haselow Reference Haselow2012: 190). Examples of demonstrative ProTag constructions with subjective core meaning are plentiful in our corpus and there is an association with evaluation, as shown by the co-occurrence of ProTags and evaluative expressions; see Section 4.4. The association of the ProTag construction and ‘right-dislocated’ elements more generally with evaluation has been commented on in several works, including Aijmer (Reference Aijmer1989) and Timmis (Reference Timmis, Aijmer and Rühlemann2014). Timmis’ (Reference Timmis, Aijmer and Rühlemann2014) observation that there is a general tendency towards positive evaluation in ProTag constructions in his corpora of British English and Irish English also holds for our findings.

As well as subjective core meaning, there are examples of ProTag constructions used with non-core intersubjective meanings. For example, in (22), the woman sarcastically mocks Sir Thomas, undermining his positive face with this challenging use of the ProTag construction (see Section 6.1; Barron et al. Reference Barron, Pandarova and Muderack2015; Mycock Reference Mycock2019).

In (23), Chalcot acknowledges Sir Alexander’s assertion that it is unfortunate that the woman has found out about something known to them both, signalling interpersonal accord. (This would be classified as an acknowledging response function according to the classificatory system proposed in Barron et al. Reference Barron, Pandarova and Muderack2015 and adopted in Mycock Reference Mycock2019).

While they do not represent lexico-grammatical constructions which express evaluation like stance devices such as comment clauses (see, for example, Biber & Zhang Reference Biber and Zhang2018), ProTag constructions are grammatical structures which can include lexical expressions of evaluation. Lexical marking of evaluation often co-occurs with the presence of a ProTag, but as Biber et al. (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan2021: 961) observe, ‘there is nothing in the grammatical structure of [expressions including such lexical marking] to show that they mark stance … Stance is in a sense embedded in these structures, dependent on the addressee’s ability to recognize the use of value-laden words’. The ProTag construction is a grammatical structure whose core meaning is subjective (‘express/reinforce speaker’s commitment to p’) and therefore is associated with expressing the speaker’s attitude. Use of the ProTag construction can serve to identify an expression as providing evaluation and thus possibly enhance the addressee’s ability to recognise it as such.

Interestingly, increases in the frequency of demonstrative ProTag occurrence do not appear to track particularly closely the expansion of tag question usage, which Hoffmann (Reference Hoffmann2006) reports increases dramatically from 1750 onwards in the same corpus (the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection). The data do not indicate an especially close shared history in the development of demonstrative ProTag constructions and tag questions beyond their initial occurrence in the same time period. What the corpus does show is that demonstrative ProTags and question tags can co-occur in the right periphery, as shown by the examples in (24).

1. 1. a. Strange tricks these, are they not? (Nathan Field & John Fletcher, Four playes or morall representations in one, 1647)

   2. b. ’Tis a pretty sad talking Boy this, is He not? (George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, The restauration, 1715)

   3. c. It’s fancy that, George, – an’t it? (Charles Dickens, The village coquettes, 1836)

In all cases, a ProTag precedes a question tag when they co-occur. Mycock and Pang (Reference Mycock and Pang2021), discussing PDBE data, identify ProTag>question tag as the default sequencing of the two kinds of tags and analyse this relative order as the result of the two having distinct core meanings: subjective for ProTags and intersubjective for question tags. Mycock and Pang (Reference Mycock and Pang2021) argue that Shinzato’s (Reference Shinzato2007) ordering principle of subjective pragmatic markers>intersubjective pragmatic markers applies at the right periphery in British English, thus accounting for the default ProTag>question tag sequence in PDBE. Tottie and Hoffmann (Reference Tottie and Hoffmann2009: 154) state that ‘in the sixteenth century, tag questions had already developed all the pragmatic functions that they have in PDE’. The functions identified in Tottie and Hoffmann (Reference Tottie and Hoffmann2009) indicate that the core meaning of question tags in the sixteenth century is intersubjective; only 13% of question tags are identified as having a subjective (attitudinal) function. This being the case, it is unsurprising to find question tags follow demonstrative ProTags when they appear together in the right periphery in our corpus. The default sequencing pattern identified in Mycock and Pang (Reference Mycock and Pang2021) is thus attested from the earliest co-occurrence of demonstrative ProTags and question tags.

Tottie and Hoffmann (Reference Tottie and Hoffmann2009) examine a subset of the data presented in Hoffmann (Reference Hoffmann2006), comprising 197 sixteenth-century plays, and provide details (in the Appendix) of all plays in which tag questions appear. Cross-referencing this information with our findings relating to demonstrative ProTag use in the same corpus, it emerges that only seven authors in Tottie and Hoffmann’s (Reference Tottie and Hoffmann2009) subset use both demonstrative ProTags and question tags; 15 authors use only question tags. This echoes a difference in usage in PDBE: question tags are a feature of standard PDE, whereas ProTag constructions are considered to be a feature of non-standard PDBE. A matter for future research is whether relative frequencies of personal ProTags in the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection behave in the same way as their demonstrative counterparts or differently, and what this might tell us about the overall development of tag constructions in the history of English.

6.6 Conclusion

Our findings support those presented in Mycock and Misson (Reference Mycock and Misson2020), but provide a much fuller picture of the demonstrative ProTag construction in the history of English. This study has shown that, though rare, the demonstrative ProTag construction is a long-standing feature of non-canonical English syntax. It is attested in 675 works written by 284 authors in our corpus, the Chadwyck–Healey English Drama Collection. In this corpus, the construction is first attested in the EModE period. There is an increase in its usage in the seventeenth century and then again in the second half of the nineteenth century. All demonstrative ProTags are attested in the corpus, though there are periods when ProTag those is not attested at all. Plural demonstrative ProTags are much rarer than singular ones generally. The singular demonstrative ProTags exhibit changing frequency relative to one another over time. This is more common initially, with its relative frequency peaking in the period 1650–1699. Preponderance of that is attested in the twentieth century after decline in use of this starting in the eighteenth century. ProTag that continues to be more common than ProTag this in PDBE (Mycock Reference Mycock2019). The anchor point of a demonstrative ProTag demonstrates a growing tendency to be covert: The number of covert anchor points jumped from 45.2% in 1600–1649 to 75.1% in 1650–1699 and is in the range 87.2%–94% for the 100+ years from the first half of the eighteenth century. Overt anchor points, when they occur, usually have the grammatical function subject; a small number of object anchor points are also attested. As in PDBE, the core meaning of the demonstrative ProTag construction is subjective, expressing speaker attitude. Consistent with a core subjective meaning, demonstrative ProTag constructions regularly include lexical items that indicate speaker orientation. The tendency is for these evaluative expressions to be positive.

From both a theory-based and a frequency-based perspective, ProTags are non-canonical. They are an addition to a structure that is already grammatically complete and meaningful. In terms of the proposition expressed they are also superfluous, neither adding nor changing meaning. It is on the pragmatic level that they make a contribution to communication, but that contribution is never obligatorily expressed via the use of the ProTag construction. In terms of frequency, they are relatively rare, both in PDBE and in the historical varieties of English examined in this study. Their relative (in)frequency is inextricably linked to their status as an optional addition and to the nature of the ProTag construction’s functions: If ProTags are a part of a speaker’s grammar, whether to add them to the expression of any particular proposition or not is a matter of user choice. Just because the construction can be used and a ProTag included, does not mean they must or even will be. This is key to understanding why this non-canonical form is employed, albeit rarely. Its contribution is pragmatic: In its core subjective use, it expresses or reinforces the speaker’s commitment to the proposition with which it occurs. Its intersubjective and discourse-oriented uses build on this function of expressing/ reinforcing the statement of speaker attitude (because pragmatic markers are inherently multi-functional), extending it to undermining positive face (Challenging) or signalling accord with the addressee’s own evaluation (Acknowledging Response), for instance. These are functions that the ProTag construction shares with question tags, indicating similarities despite differences in their respective patterns of frequency over time. The history of the demonstrative ProTag construction in English reveals the potential durability of an aspect of non-canonical English syntax which simultaneously satisfies both of the definitions of non-canonicity explored in this volume. From the late sixteenth century to the present day, the demonstrative ProTag construction has existed outside the canon of English syntax, enduring thanks to its utility as a device for signalling communicative intentions.