"I'm just saying"

[Nancy Friedman]

IANAL (I am not a linguist), but:
 
I've been noticing an increasing usage of "I'm just saying" (sometimes
rendered as "I'm not saying, I'm just saying"--very Zenlike!). It'seems to
be a qualifying coda to a statement of opinion, as in: "It's not a good idea
to put your two year old in the bath with an uneaten chicken nugget. Not
that you would do anything so ridiculous - I'm just saying..." (Verbatim
citation.)
 
It's also the title of many blogs.
 
I've found one reference to "I'm just saying" as a "discourse marker." How
exactly does it inflect the sentence that precedes it? Is it regional in
origin? (I haven't encountered it much here in the Bay Area--though I've
heard it on NPR and read it in print--and wonder whether it's an East Coast
phenomenon.) Generational? Used outside the U.S.? First occurrence--when?
 
Thanks in advance for your enlightenment.
 
Nancy Friedman
nancyf AT wordworking dot com
 

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org