The Extremes of Insubordination

Abstract

In present-day colloquial English, exclamatory as if denies an expressed or implied state of affairs, as in He thinks you’ll be impressed. As if. This usage is often attributed to a speech style of the 1980s and a popular television program, but OED-3 gives a 1903 instance from dialogue in an American novel. After undertaking a corpus study of exclamatory as if in present-day and historical English, this article explores the association of exclamatory as if with monoclauses or insubordinated clauses such as As if I was the one at fault. The occurrence and meaning of such clauses in present-day English are described. The article then examines the postulated derivation of as if monoclauses from full adjunct conditional clauses via processes of insubordination. Finally, the article considers an alternative development of monoclausal as if (and exclamatory as if) involving ellipsis of complement clauses in it is/ looks/ seem as if. . . structures rather than directly from adjunct adverbial clauses.