Abstract
This article explores the diachronic development of mirativeend upin American English, which emerged in the late nineteenth century and which seems to be, at present, in the process of becoming a parenthetical element. The rise of the various mirativeend upconstructions is argued to be the result of both pragmatic enrichment and paradigmatic analogy, motivated by a series of semantically and formally related expressions, most prominently by mirativeturn out. Moreover, the article delves into the process of cooptation to explain the emergence of parenthetical instances in the present-day language. Cooptation is understood as an intrinsically analogical-driven mechanism when it entails the eventual grammaticalization of formulaic parenthetical constructions. Data for the present study were taken from a variety of diachronic and synchronic sources, which include COHA, COCA and NOW, among others.
Highlights
This article is concerned with the diachronic development of mirative end up constructions like the ones illustrated in (1):(1) (a) They agreed to drive nearly five hours across the state from their home, figuring they would spend maybe two hours at the prison
The present article has focused on a specific verb, phrasal end up, which expresses mirative meaning both parasitically – when occurring in copulative constructions – and non-parasitically – when attested in raising constructions and in the still incipient parenthetical construction
Proving the role of analogy in the emergence of latenineteenth-century end up is difficult to demonstrate, its influence seems to be clearer in the case of the emerging Present-day English (PDE) parenthetical instances: this is due to data accessibility, and to the very specific analogical models that these parentheticals seem to follow
Summary
This article is concerned with the diachronic development of mirative end up constructions like the ones illustrated in (1):. The still scant presence of end up parentheticals seems to indicate that the verb is undergoing further change in present-day American English, in line with the developments followed by other raising verbs like happen, seem or turn out. This article aims to explore the emergence of phrasal end up and the mechanisms that result in its mirative readings.
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