[Lexicog] Dissertation on "like"

[Rudolph C Troike]

(In case you are not a regular reader of the Linguist List)

If you, like, are, like, one of those, like, who, like, use, like, "like"
like before and like after every other, like, word, or if this practice
drives you up the wall, you may be surprised and interested to know that
it has, like, fostered a growing body of linguistic research, of which
this is, like, the, like, latest. Lexicographical entries (e.g. OED) may
have to be, like, revised.

	Rudy Troike

   * *

   LINGUIST List 16.2552
   Mon Sep 05 2005
   _________________________________________________________________

   From: Alexandra D'Arcy <alex.darcy [address-marker.gif] utoronto.ca>
   Subject: Like: Syntax and Development
   Institution: University of Toronto
   Program: Department of Linguistics
   Dissertation Status: Completed
   Degree Date: 2005
   Author: Alexandra D'Arcy
   Dissertation Title: Like: Syntax and Development

   Dissertation Director(s):
   Sali Tagliamonte

   Dissertation Abstract:
   Discourse LIKE, as in (1), is one of the most salient features of
   present-day vernacular English.

   (1) a. LIKE, Carrie's LIKE a little LIKE out-of-it but LIKE she's the
          funniest. (3/T/f/18)
       b. Well, you just cut out LIKE a girl figure and a boy figure.
            (N/8/f/75)

   It is overtly stigmatized and associated with adolescents, where it is
   perceived as a crutch for lexical indecision (e.g., Diamond 2000;
   Siegel 2000). In the literature, LIKE is sometimes characterized as a
   'meaningless interjection' (OED) that can be used 'grammatically
   anywhere' (Siegel 2002:64).

   Descriptions such as these suggest that LIKE is unconstrained, yet
   language, despite inherent variability, is rule-governed (see also
   Underhill 1988; Andersen 2001).

   LIKE has received much attention in the pragmatic literature (e.g.,
   Schourup 1983; Andersen 1997 et seq.), but it has never been
   investigated from a variationist perspective. Consequently, this
   dissertation presents an accountable analysis of LIKE in a large corpus
   of contemporary English. The hypothesis developed in this work is that
   LIKE is not random, but interacts with syntactic structure in regular
   and predictable ways. To address this issue, the variable context is
   circumscribed according to structural criteria and the analyses are
   embedded within current Minimalist Theory (e.g., Chomsky 1995 et
   seq.). Over 20,000 structurally defined contexts are examined,
   comprising data from 97 speakers between the ages of 10 and 87.

   This method reveals that LIKE is 1) highly constrained by the syntax
   and 2) occurs in specific positions among speakers of all ages. Indeed,
   examination of language-internal constraints reveals that the community
   shares a single variable grammar for LIKE (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001).
   This feature is shown to have developed gradually and systematically,
   arriving at its current state through regular processes of language
   change. Using the grammaticalization models proposed by Traugott (1997
   [1995]) and Brinton (forthcoming), it is argued that after initially
   developing as a discourse marker, where it occurs clause-initially and
   links sequences of dialogue (Fraser 1988, 1990), LIKE then begins to
   enter syntactic structure, spreading to one maximal projection at a time.
   _________________________________________________________________



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