Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Biographic Data
| ID | 603856 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth Closs Traugott |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth Closs |
| FAMILY NAME | Traugott |
| SIGNATURE | TRAUGOTT E C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1016-7803 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 76 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 399 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 72 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
“But I Hate Him Just the Same”
Concessivity in English is often associated with structures like Although it was hot, she went running. Although introduces a subordinate clause. There are also several markers of concessivity associated with coordinate structures, among them, all the same and nevertheless. The development of coordinate markers of concessivity has received little attention. Here I compare the histories of three markers that arose from expressions of identity: all…
The rise of a concessive “category reassessment” construction
In the Late Modern English period, several expressions arose with concessive ‘despite what might be expected’ meaning, among them anyway, nonetheless and all the same ( Lenker 2010 ). The topic of this paper is the rise of the specialized concessive construction “but ( be ) X all the same”. In the full rhetorical formula of which it is a part, X is initially represented as not having properties Y but nevertheless as having sufficient other releva…
A constructional perspective on the rise of metatextual discourse markers
Cognitive linguistics seeks to account for "a speaker's knowledge of the full range of linguistic conventions" (LANGACKER, 1987; also GOLDBERG, 2006). It is surprising therefore that little attention has been paid in cognitive linguistics to the linguistic conventions called "discourse markers" (SCHIFFRIN, 1987) or "pragmatic markers" (FRASER, 2009, et passim). Pragmatic markers include signals of attention to social relationships (well, please),…
A study of the development of the Chinese correlative comparative construction from the perspective of constructionalization
The paper addresses the emergence and development of the Chinese correlative comparative construction (CrCC) from the perspective of constructionalization. Most previous historical studies of the CrCC take a grammaticalization approach (e.g., Long 2013 ), focusing mainly on morphosyntax alone rather than investigating syntax and semantics in an integrated way. However, the architecture of construction grammar requires approaching linguistic analy…
The intertwining of differentiation and attraction as exemplified by the history of recipient transfer and benefactive alternations
De Smet et al. (2018) propose that when functionally similar constructions come to overlap, analogical attraction may occur. So may differentiation, but this process involves attraction to other subnetworks and is both “accidental” and “exceptional”. I argue that differentiation plays a considerably more significant role than De Smet et al. allow. My case study is the development of the dative and benefactive alternations. The rise of the dative …
Expressions of stance-to-text
The development of "digressive" discourse-topic shift markers in English
The development of the Chinese copula shì construction
This paper investigates the development of the copula shì construction in Chinese from the perspective of diachronic construction grammar ( Traugott & Trousdale 2013 ). In prior work the development has been conceptualized in a grammaticalization framework, with focus on the individual expression shì , rather than on its development in the context of both the immediate syntactic frame and also of other constructions such as the demonstrative shì …
Whither historical pragmatics? A cognitively-oriented perspective
Rethinking the Role of Invited Inferencing in Change from the Perspective of Interactional Texts
The hypothesis that “invited inferences” are factors in change and challenges to it are reviewed. In light of recent work on historical construction grammar and interactional discourse analysis, I suggest that at least three types of inferences play a role in interactional contexts: local inferences associated with specific expressions; discourse structuring inferences pertaining to factors like coherence, backgrounding and foregrounding; and tur…
Do semantic modal maps have a role in a constructionalization approach to modals
My aim in this paper is to show that, in modified form, semantic connectivity maps of the kind developed in van der Auwera & Plungian (1998) and van der Auwera (2013) can be useful for showing the development over time of relationships among polysemous constructions. Since these maps pertain primarily to meaning and are intended as contributions to cross-linguistic generalizations rather than to language-specific grammars, their purpose might see…
Periphery
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On the rise of types of clause-final pragmatic markers in English
Much work on pragmatic markers in the history of English has been devoted to expressions used clause-initially at “left periphery”. By contrast, this study provides an account in broad outlines of the incremental development of pragmatic markers in clause-final “right periphery” position. Particular attention is paid to the rise of comment clauses, question tags, general extenders, and retrospective contrastive markers. Traditional characterizati…
Investigating “periphery” from a functionalist perspective
Several models of pragmatic markers in initial and final position “outside” the clause are presented, many of them suggesting a sharp divide between periphery “outside” the core clause, and periphery “inside” the core. Characteristics of pragmatic markers often considered to be prototypical are discussed, especially syntactic and prosodic detachability. Evidence from prosody and from the historical development of some pragmatic markers, such as g…
The constructionalization of the Chinese cleft construction
This paper addresses the emergence and development of the Chinese cleft construction, with particular attention to the period from Early Archaic Chinese through Late Medieval Chinese. Prototype copulas are typically of the form [NP SHI NP], are predicational or specificational, and cue information focus. We trace the gradual development over time of copula clefts in addition to prototype copula constructions. A key factor in their development is …
Ah, pox o’ your Pad-lock”
Divergence and Apparent Convergence in the Development of Yet and Still
Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1982)
The Sociostylistics of Minority Dialect in Literary Prose
Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1981), pp. 308-316
Constructionalization and Constructional Changes
This title develops an approach to language change based on construction grammar in order to reconceptualise grammaticalisation and lexicalisation. The authors show that language change proceeds by micro-steps involving every aspect of grammar including pragmatics and discourse functions.
The Oxford Handbook of the History of English
Abstract This handbook takes stock of recent advances in the history of English, the most studied language in the field of diachronic linguistics. Not only does ample and invaluable data exist due to English’s status as a global language, but the availability of large electronic corpora has also allowed historical linguists to analyze more of this data than ever before, and to rethink standard assumptions about language history and the methods an…
The Oxford handbook of the history of English
"The availability of large electronic corpora has caused major shifts in linguistic research, including the ability to analyze much more data than ever before, and to perform micro-analyses of linguistic structures across languages. This has historical linguists to rethink many standard assumptions about language history, and methods and approaches that are relevant to the study of it. The field is now interested in, and attracts, specialists who…
Intersubjectification and clause periphery
Ways of identifying subjectification and especially intersubjectification are discussed using data from the history of English no doubt and surely . These adverbs arose out of non-modal expressions and were recruited for use as epistemic adverbs and metadiscursive markers. The data are shown not to support the hypothesis that expressions at left periphery are likely to be subjective (oriented toward turn-taking and discourse coherence), those at …
Modality from a Historical Perspective
‘Modality’ is defined as a semantic supercategory distinct from ‘modals’, which are structural expressions. Recent diachronic cross‐linguistic work on both modality and modals is reviewed, with particular attention to the role of dynamic (‘ability’) modality in the rise of modal expressions. Since much research in the last decade has focused on non‐verbal expressions of modality, the historical development of adjectives into modals, e.g. had bett…
La linguistique, étude de l'aptitude au langage
Language is considered a defining property of humanity in ancient myths and in contemporary humanities disciplines such as philosophy and in linguistics. But there are competing views about what constitutes the capacity for language. One approach, known as the formal generative approach, regards the language capacity as autonomous from other cognitive abilities, and equates it with the syntactic ability to form an infinite number of sentences fro…
Linguistics
Language is considered a defining property of humanity in ancient myths and in contemporary humanities disciplines such as philosophy and in linguistics. But there are competing views about what constitutes the capacity for language. One approach, known as the formal generative approach, regards the language capacity as autonomous from other cognitive abilities, and equates it with the syntactic ability to form an infinite number of sentences fro…
On the Rise of Epistemic Meanings in English
Etablissement de quelques principes de changement semantique sous-tendant le developpement des elements lexicaux et grammaticaux dans l'expression des modalites epistemiques
A History of English Syntax
The concepts of constructional mismatch and type-shifting from the perspective of grammaticalization
The concepts mismatch, type-shifting, and coercion are central to much recent work on cognitive linguistics. In a number of papers, Michaelis has investigated entity and event coercion (Michaelis 2003a, b, 2004 a, b). I address her question "what conditions favor the diachronic development of shift constructions" (Michaelis 2004a: 8) from the perspective of grammaticalization, with particular reference to the development of partitive construction…
A Short History of Linguistics
Invoking scalarity
The discourse contexts are analyzed in which clause-internal in fact developed pragmaticalized meanings and came to invoke scalarity in two domains: epistemic sentence adverb (IPAdv), and additive discourse marker (DM). In both these uses, in fact tightens word to world fit (Powell 1992): the world of epistemic belief in the case of the IPAdv, the world of evaluative, rhetorical perspective in the case of the DM. The analysis therefore provides f…
On the rise of types of clause-final pragmatic markers in English
Much work on pragmatic markers in the history of English has been devoted to expressions used clause-initially at “left periphery”. By contrast, this study provides an account in broad outlines of the incremental development of pragmatic markers in clause-final “right periphery” position. Particular attention is paid to the rise of comment clauses, question tags, general extenders, and retrospective contrastive markers. Traditional characterizati…
Toward a grammar of syntactic change
The sociolinguistics of a short-lived innovation
This paper examines a short-lived innovation, quotative all , in real and apparent time. We used a two-pronged method to trace the trajectory of all over the past two decades: (i) Quantitative analyses of the quotative system of young Californians from different decades; this reveals a startling crossover pattern: in 1990/1994, all predominates, but by 2005, it has given way to like . (ii) Searches of Internet newsgroups; these confirm that after…
The development of "digressive" discourse-topic shift markers in English
Already’ and ‘yet’
The present study arose out of an investigation of whether already and yet as in He has left already, *He has left yet, IHe hasn't left already, He hasn't left yet formed a suppletion set that matches some →any, sometimes → ever , etc. as in They want some love, *They want any love, ?They don't want some love, They don't want any love (for discussion of some, sometimes, too , etc. cf. Klima, 1964; Fillmore, 1967; UCLA, 1967: Negation). Various ob…
Meaning-change in the development of grammatical markers
Spatial Expressions of Tense and Temporal Sequencing
Periphery
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A critique of Levinson’s view of Q- and M-inferences in historical pragmatics
In Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Conversational Implicature , Levinson (2000) argues that in historical as well as synchronic work there is need to distinguish three types of pragmatic principles, which he labels the Q-, M-, and I- “heuristics”. This is in contrast to Horn (1984), who argues for two types of “principles”: Q- and R-. In the present paper I argue that the proposed distinction between Q- and M- Heuristics is not necessary or c…
Whither historical pragmatics? A cognitively-oriented perspective
(Inter)subjectification and unidirectionality
In this paper the importance of distinguishing synchronic (inter)subjectivity and diachronic (inter)subjectification is stressed. Questions are posed concerning the robustness of hypotheses about matches between semantic function and syntactic position at the left or right periphery of the clause in Japanese, the extent to which subtypes of (inter)subjective function constrain the direction of shift over time, and the optimal unit of analysis (se…
The intertwining of differentiation and attraction as exemplified by the history of recipient transfer and benefactive alternations
De Smet et al. (2018) propose that when functionally similar constructions come to overlap, analogical attraction may occur. So may differentiation, but this process involves attraction to other subnetworks and is both “accidental” and “exceptional”. I argue that differentiation plays a considerably more significant role than De Smet et al. allow. My case study is the development of the dative and benefactive alternations. The rise of the dative …
Expressions of stance-to-text
Approaching modality from the perspective of Relevance Theory
Le changement linguistique et sa relation à l'acquisition de la langue maternelle
Traugott Elizabeth Closs. Le changement linguistique et sa relation à l'acquisition de la langue maternelle. In: Langages, 8e année, n°32, 1973. Le changement linguistique. pp. 39-52
Ah, pox o’ your Pad-lock”
Recent Developments in Viewpoint-Wise
Research Article| February 01 2005 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN VIEWPOINT -WISE KA'ALA YEZBICK; KA'ALA YEZBICK Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google ELIZABETH CLOSS TRAUGOTT ELIZABETH CLOSS TRAUGOTT Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2005) 80 (1): 105–112. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-80-1-105 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review S…
Morphemic Structure of Chaucer's English
Descriptive Analysis of Discourse in Late West Saxon Texts
Models of language
Already’ and ‘yet’
The present study arose out of an investigation of whether already and yet as in He has left already, *He has left yet, IHe hasn't left already, He hasn't left yet formed a suppletion set that matches some →any, sometimes → ever , etc. as in They want some love, *They want any love, ?They don't want some love, They don't want any love (for discussion of some, sometimes, too , etc. cf. Klima, 1964; Fillmore, 1967; UCLA, 1967: Negation). Various ob…
A Short History of Linguistics
Toward a grammar of syntactic change
A History of English Syntax
A Syntax of King Alfred's Pastoral Care
Le changement linguistique et sa relation à l'acquisition de la langue maternelle
Traugott Elizabeth Closs. Le changement linguistique et sa relation à l'acquisition de la langue maternelle. In: Langages, 8e année, n°32, 1973. Le changement linguistique. pp. 39-52
Irregularity in Syntax
William Labov, Sociolinguistic patterns. (Conduct and Communication, 4.) Philadelphia
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Spatial Expressions of Tense and Temporal Sequencing
Variation and Linguistic Theory
Papers from the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Stanford, March 26–30 1979
The studies in this volume are revised versions of a selection from the papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, held at Stanford University on 26–30 March 1979. Papers at this conference, and in this volume, treat aspects of all current topics in historical linguistics, including topics that are only recently considered relevant, such as acquisition, structure, and language use.
Meaning-change in the development of grammatical markers
Linguistics for Students of Literature
From propositional to textual and expressive meanings; some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization
Sprache und Pragmatik
Dick Leith. A social history of English. (Language and Society Series.) London
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Conditional markers
From Opposition to Iteration
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Some Questions for the Definition of "Style" in Socio-Historical Linguistics
On Conditionals
On Conditionals provides the first major cross-disciplinary account of conditional (if-then) constructions. Conditional sentences directly reflect the language user's ability to reason about alternatives, uncertainties, and unrealised contingencies. An understanding of the conceptual and behavioural organisation involved in the construction and interpretation of these kinds of sentences therefore provides fundamental insights into the inferential…
On the Origins of "And" and "But" Connectives in English
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Pragmatic Strengthening and Grammaticalization
Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1988), pp. 406-416
Linguistics (61 works) · Philosophy (60 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (41 works) · Computer Science (39 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (28 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (25 works) · Psychology (23 works) · History (22 works) · Grammaticalization (19 works)