Adjunct, modifier, discourse marker: On the various functions of right in the history of English
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Belén Méndez Naya
Abstract
This article studies the different uses of the adverb right in the history of the English language. Using data from the Helsinki Corpus, it is shown that the different synchronic functions identified for Present-Day English right – namely adjunct, modifier and discourse marker – can be said to represent different degrees of grammaticalization. The function closer to the lexical pole, that of adjunct, is also the oldest one, while the more grammaticalized functions of modifier and discourse marker emerge later and are the prevalent uses of the form nowadays. In this connection, the article provides further evidence of the specialization of so-called zero adverbs in grammatical functions. It is argued here that the discourse marker right, although remarkably similar in behaviour to adverbs like certainly or well, is more likely to have developed from the corresponding adjective.
© 2007 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Natural vs. unnatural sound changes: A reanalysis of occlusivization in Southeast Solomonic
- Zum relationalen Verhalten der Verbalflexion im Ṭurojo
- Die Indogermanische Perfektreduplikation
- Natürlicher syntaktischer Wandel. Epistemizität als Drehscheibe der kategorialen. Innovation. Oder: in S. wird es (wohl) gerade schneien
- Adjunct, modifier, discourse marker: On the various functions of right in the history of English
- Causalité et conditionnement dans le fonctionnalisme diachronique
- A note on the *-ō/-eu/-u, *-ā/*-āi/-i stems in Indo-European. A propos of a paper by Paul Brosman
- Peter Bellwood & Colin Renfrew, eds.: Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis
- Anna Gannon: The Iconography of Early Anglo-Saxon Coinage: Sixth to Eighth Centuries
- Bernadette Smelik, Rijcklof Hofman, Camiel Hamans & David Cram, eds.: A companion in linguistics. A Festschrift for Anders Ahlqvist on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday
- Seiichi Suzuki: The metre of Old Saxon poetry: The remaking of alliterative tradition
- Erratum
