1917 Forms of Say : That Said and I’m Just Saying
7.1 Introduction
Say – like many general verbs of communication, cognition, and perception
( know , mean , think , guess , suppose , see , hear ) – is a common source of com-
ment clauses. Brinton ( 2008 : 73– 110) discusses the use of the verb say in a
number of pragmatic markers, showing that say participates in different struc-
tures, has a variety of syntactic sources, and serves a number of pragmatic
functions. I say (sometimes reduced to say ) is an attention- getter with subjec-
tive overtones of speaker surprise, disbelief, or anger (as in Spoilt brats, I say.
Money doesn’t grow on trees .). The modal I dare say is an epistemic marker
expressing speaker tentativeness, with intersubjective tones of impatience or
dismissiveness (as in You would like, I dare say, if I could give you a clear
and defi nite policy .). I say and I dare say perhaps derive from main clauses
(the matrix clause hypothesis ; see Section 1.4.1.2 ), though evidence of clausal
complementation in the early periods is scarce. The bare verb say has a wide
variety of functions: in the meaning ‘suppose, assume’ (as in Say there actually
were vultures on his tail ), ‘about, approximately’ (as in Keep the reconstructed
stuff down to, say, 5% of the whole. ), ‘for example’ (as in Yet it is not the reality
of a naturalistic drama, such as we would fi nd in, say, Ibsen or Chekhov. ), and
“tell me/ us” (as in Say, isn’t that ...? ). These all derive from a second- person
imperative followed by an interrogative complement clause. Second- person
forms, you say and as you say , serve, respectively, to highlight information
expressed or assumed (as in You’re an actor, you say?) and express agreement
with the interlocutor (as in But, as you say, rumours don’t have to be true .).
Both may most likely be traced back to as you say. Finally, that is to say – the
oldest of all the forms – is a connective with metalinguistic function that origi-
nated in Old English as a non- restrictive relative structure (perhaps modeled
on Latin ).
This chapter investigates two further comment clauses based on say , namely,
that/ this (having been , being) said (and its active variant having said that ) and
the recent – or recently noticed – (I’m) just saying (and its variants all I’m say-
ing (is) and what I’m saying (is) ). In each case, the form and function of the