[Lexicog] "like"

[Chaz and Helga Mortensen]

I'm like,

"There's like another language with a phenomenon like this besides 
English?! Hello?!!

-Chaz

En serio: I first heard this when seeing an old James Dean movie from 
the late 50s.

On Sep 6, 2005, at 6:17 AM, Fritz Goerling wrote:

> Howdy, Rudy, 
>  
> This adolescents' use of "like" is like German adolescents' use of 
> "irgendwie" (= somehow).
> It is not just a "crutch for lexical indecision" (Diamond, Siegel, see 
> below) but also a sign
> of a poorly developed vocabulary which ranges from "cool" (or whatever 
> the "in" terms are)
> to its opposite "uncool" (or whatever the "in" terms are).
>  
> Fritz Goerling

>>
>>       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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