7.2 The “That Said” Construction 2057.2. 7 Summary of “That Said” Construction
In summary, it would appear that this said and having said this are originally
calques on Latin hic dictis occurring in the sixteenth century, though similar
structures can be found in Middle English. The longer forms, that/ this being
said/ having been said , are, in fact, later developments; they represent expan-
sions of the simple passive participle with aspectual (progressive and perfect)
marking. While expansion is perhaps not as intuitively obvious as deletion, such
a change is consistent with the increasing complexity of the verb form in the
history of English. The process of expansion seen here is analogous to the devel-
opment of the what with construction (see Trousdale 2012b ), which appears
fi rst in Middle English with conjoined noun phrases and only later occurs with
longer structures involving gerunds and small clauses. Early uses of these con-
structions all express temporal/ sequential meaning, referring to a previous utter-
ance (or implied utterance); they are common in narrative. The development of
01020Raw frequency304050601900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000that said having said thatFigure 7.3 Rise in frequency of that said and having said that in COHA
(Searched March 21, 2016. The search strings used here were [period] that said
[comma] and [period] having said that [comma].)