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Evolution with an attitude: the grammaticalisation of epistemic/evidential verbs in Australian English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2013

CELESTE RODRÍGUEZ LOURO  and
THOMAS HARRIS
CELESTE RODRÍGUEZ LOURO
Affiliation:
35 Stirling Hwy, M257, Discipline of Linguistics, University of Western Australia, Crawley (6009), Australiaceleste.rodriguezlouro@uwa.edu.au
THOMAS HARRIS
Affiliation:
School of Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Parkville (3010), Australiatcharris@student.unimelb.edu.au
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Abstract

Across Englishes, frequently used epistemic/evidential complement-taking predicates (e/e ctps) have undergone conventionalisation, whereby subject + e/e verb constructions are reanalysed as formulaic stance markers. However, the system of e/e ctps in Australian English (AusE) – and the degree to which they have grammaticalised – remains unexplored. In this article, we offer a quantitative analysis of the most frequent e/e ctps in the spoken portion of the International Corpus of English – Australia. Multivariate analysis shows that think and guess stand as canonical encoders of speaker attitude, and reckon is multifunctional, encoding epistemic modality and evidentiality. Assuming that (inter-)subjective meaning represents the last stage in semantic change, our results indicate that AusE reckon is less grammaticalised than think and guess.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , November 2013 , pp. 415 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

1

Thanks to Kate Burridge, Jean Mulder, Marie-Eve Ritz and Cara Penry-Williams for their helpful tips searching for a corpus of Australian English in early 2010. A version of this paper was presented at the 19th Conference of the International Pragmatics Association (Manchester) and as part of linguistics seminars offered at the University of Vienna (2011), Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universidad de Barcelona (2012). We would like to thank the audiences at these meetings for their helpful feedback. Special thanks are due to Laurel Brinton, Günther Kaltenböck and Montserrat González for their comments and suggestions. We are also indebted to two anonymous reviewers and the Editor for their helpful suggestions. All errors remain our own responsibility.

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