The development of LIKE

With respect to semantics, several authors propose a direct link between the similarity relation expressed by the comparative preposition and the hedging function of clause‐medial LIKE (Buchstaller 2001:23‐24; Romaine &

Lange 1991:260‐261). Finally, the change from comparative forms, which establish similarity relations, to hedging devices is by no means unexpected – in fact, similar developments are attested to in several languages (Fleischman

& Yaguello 2004; Meyerhoff & Niedzielski 1998; Sankoff et al. 1997).

4.1.3 Interim synopsis

This part of the chapter has presented and briefly discussed the concepts of grammaticalization and defined pragmaticalization as one of its subordinate processes. In addition, it has provided the most prominent theories of LIKE’s grammaticalization. The most common theory with respect to the grammaticalization of LIKE proposes that LIKE developed from the comparative preposition (cf. D’Arcy 2005; Meehan 1991; Romaine & Lange 1991).

The following chapter will briefly recapitulate LIKE’s diachronic development and discuss the issue of whether it has grammaticalized in parallel in various locations simultaneously or whether, when, and how it has spread from one or more source varieties to other target varieties. Subsequently, this chapter will present previous research on the attitudes associated with LIKE and previous claims about its syntactic positioning.

environments. A more fine‐grained analysis of this form reveals, however, that LIKE is multifaceted. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, LIKE was commonly regarded as non‐standard, colloquial, or even vulgar (Jespersen 1954:417) and assumed to be either a meaningless interjection akin to elements such as uhm, and mh, or an “expletive to provide emphasis or pause”

(Morris 1969:757; Romaine & Lange 1991:245). Early accounts of LIKE in slang and dialect dictionaries depict it as a traditional, dialectal or non‐standard feature of English (e.g. Wright 1857; Wright 1902; Grant & Dixon 1921;

Partridge 1984). These early accounts focused mainly on clause‐final LIKE as in (4), a variant which is commonly associated with Northern British varieties of English (Hedevind 1967:237) and which has more recently been described as “archaic or traditional (and obsolescing)” (D’Arcy 2005:5).

(4) a. Well I mean it's up to yourself <,> it’s up to you like. (ICE‐Ireland:S1B‐

016$A)

b. I feel we sh’d both be better for a change like (Jespersen 1954:418) c. And she was good in the Who Dunnit like. (ICE‐Ireland:S1A‐018$A)

According to several authors (e.g. Andersen 1998, 2000, 2001; D’Arcy 2005; Siegel 2002; Tagliamonte 2005), a supposedly more recent and innovative American variant has quickly been gaining ground, especially in the language of teenagers. With respect to the origin of this innovative variant of LIKE, Andersen (2000) states that it is “said to have its roots in New York City counterculture groups (jazz, cool and beat) in the 1960s” (Andersen 2000:216, cf. also Wentworth & Flexner 1967; Chapman 1986; OED 1989 VIII:946).

Although Croucher claims that LIKE, along with you know, “were implanted in the American culture by a popular creation in the 1980s, ‘Valley Girls’”

(2004b:38), this is probably incorrect as there are various attestations of vernacular uses of LIKE predating the mid‐ to late twentieth century. In fact, both Croucher’s (2004a) and Andersen’s (2000) hypotheses are qualified by D’Arcy (2005, 2007). Based on her analysis of LIKE use in Toronto English, she concludes that “the vernacular forms are not twentieth‐century innovations that originate from the Valley Girls. Only the quotative may be sourced to this

group; the rest have extended histories in the English language” (D’Arcy 2007:411). Consider D’Arcy (2007:411) on this issue:

The combination of empirical data from regional dialects of British English and the apparent‐time results from Toronto suggest that the nonquotative vernacular functions of like have been increasing in frequency over the last 65 years or so, and the marker for seemingly longer still. In other words, they represent change in progress and cannot be isolated to the North American context.

In addition to D’Arcy (2005, 2007), Meehan (1991) and Schweinberger (2013) emphasize that vernacular uses of LIKE have a long‐standing history dating back to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The OED also provides various examples from this era as, for instance, in (5). The OED describes such instances of LIKE as dialectal and vulgar used “parenthetically to qualify a preceding statement: = ‘as it were’, ‘so to speak’. Also, colloq. (orig.

US), as a meaningless interjection or expletive.” (OED, 2nd ed., 1989; online version March 2011).

(5) a. Father grew quite uneasy, like, for fear of his Lordship's taking offence.

(1778:F. Burney Evelina II. xxiii. 222)

b. In an ordinary way like. (1826:J. Wilson Noctes Ambrosianae xxvii, in Blackwoods Edinb. Mag. July 91)

c. If your Honour were more amongst us, there might be more discipline like.

(1838:E. Bulwer‐Lytton Alice I. ii. iii. 157)

d. Why like, it's gaily nigh like, to four mile like. (1840:T. De Quincey Style in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 398/1)

The examples dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are almost exclusively clause‐final uses of LIKE. The earliest instances of clause‐

initial LIKE provided in the OED date back to the middle of the twentieth century as in (6). Clause‐medial LIKE as in (7) seems to be an even later development, as the first attestations provided by the OED appear in data from the early 1970s.

(6) a. Like how much can you lay on [i.e. give] me? (1950:Neurotica Autumn 45) b. What will be the contradictions that produce further change? Like, it seems to me that it would be virtually impossible to avoid some contradictions.

(1973:Black Panther 17 Nov. 9/4)

(7) To concoct some fiendish scheme that might like give youse a fightin' chance. (1971:‘H. Calvin’ Poison Chasers xiii. 170)

However, while D’Arcy (2005) and Schweinberger (2012) concur that clause‐final LIKE grammaticalized much earlier than clause‐initial and clause‐

medial LIKE, the timeline suggested by the OED examples for clause‐initial and clause‐medial LIKE requires revisiting. To elaborate: Romaine and Lange (1991:270) hypothesize that vernacular uses of LIKE have probably been around for more than a century (cf. also D’Arcy 2007:401). Schweinberger (2013) offers further evidence for D’Arcy’s (2007) interpretation and provides examples of clause‐medial LIKE occurring in the speech of Northern Irish English speakers aged 65 and older as in (8).

(8) a. There not so much work, like, on farms around here now. (NITCS:L17.3# I LD37; Protestant female aged 65 to 75)

b. Well, I don't really know much, like, about making cheese. (NITCS:L12.3# I LM25; Catholic female aged 65 to 75)

c. It was off, like, the road this number of years, it is. (NITCS:L7.3# I WG23;

Protestant male aged 65 to 75)

d. Oh, aye, aye. They were very awkward things to shoe. You know, you could hardly get the feet off the ground, they were, like, stupid, you know.

(NITCS:L7.3# I TF80; Catholic male aged 65 to 75)

This finding is corroborated by apparent‐time evidence provided by D’Arcy (2007:400), who concludes that

[t]his suggests that the marker was already a feature of the vernacular before it was associated with the Beat and jazz groups of the 1950s and 1960s. In fact, working from the apparent‐time hypothesis, in the 1930s, when these 80‐year‐olds were teenagers, like must have been relatively frequent in the ambient language as a discourse marker, a usage inherited by these speakers from the previous generations. The added perspective afforded by the British data further jeopardizes the plausibility of the counterculture genesis hypothesis. As both a marker and a particle, like is attested among the oldest

speakers in the English, Scottish, and Northern Irish communities considered here, raising troubling questions about the American roots of these forms more generally.

Nonetheless, extrapolating from apparent‐time data to real‐time is not unproblematic (cf. section 2.4.1); hence, D’Arcy’s (2007:400‐401) assertions require complementary real‐time evidence to be conclusive. Indeed, early instances of thediscourse marker LIKE can be observed in historical material included in the Corpus of Irish English (Hickey 2003). Consider (9):

(9) a. MIRABELL: By your leave, Witwoud, that were like enquiring after an old Fashion, to ask a Husband for his Wife. (Congreve, William 1700:The Way of the World; Corpus of Irish English)

b. 'Judy's out a luck,' said I, striving to laugh 'I'm out a luck,' said he, and I never saw a man look so cast down; he took up the halfpenny off the flag, and walked away quite sobered like by the shock. (Edgeworth, Maria 1801:Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian Tale; Corpus of Irish English)

c. She was dressed like a mad woman, moreover, more than like any one I ever saw afore or since, and I could not lake my eyes off her. (Edgeworth, Maria 1801:Castle Rackrent, an Hibernian Tale; Corpus of Irish English)

The instances in (9) seriously challenge the assumption that clause‐medial LIKE is a twentieth‐century development and substantiate D’Arcy’s (2007) tentative assertions that LIKE neither originated in North American English, nor did it grammaticalize in the twentieth century.