212 Forms of Say
meaning (e.g., that’s all/ what I’m saying , all/ what I’m saying is that , do you
understand/ agree with what I’m saying , I’ve said all I’m saying ). However,
the forms without is are almost always comment clauses. Searching SOAP for
all examples of parenthetical all/ what I’m saying not followed by is , we fi nd
twenty- one examples of all I’m saying and fi ve examples of what I’m saying.^21
All I’m saying is used when the addressee has objected to something the speaker
has said or implied, and the speaker is reiterating his or her opinion.
(21) a. Rex: Do I look like a guy who shovels? No. All I’m saying , forget Cramer.
(2004 OLTL)
b. Kate: Oh, Roman – Roman: Kate, Kate, all I’m saying , think about it –
that’s all, okay? (2005 DAYS)
c. Blair: Don’t you patronize me! Asa: All I’m saying , honey – you said you
saw her before, but you didn’t. (2005 OLTL)
d. Wesley: All I’m saying , you’re jumping to the conclusion based on very
little evidence. (2002 YR)
What I’m saying is used when the speaker is reiterating, possibly emphasiz-
ing, a proposition because the hearer has not understand or accepted what the
speaker has said before:
(22) a. I’m not going to do that, so breaking up, what I’m saying , breaking up was
the only way out. Eden: You really loved her. (2002 GL)
b. What I ’ m saying , honey, look at you now. (2003 DAYS)
c. Benny: What are you saying? Rafe: What I’m saying , it sure as hell seems
to me like you’ve been hung out to dry (2010 DAYS)
Koops and Hilpert ( 2009 ) argue that in a pseudo- cleft such as “What I’m
saying is that breaking up was the only way out” (cf. 22a), the wh- clause is
a “presupposed open proposition” with a missing argument (e.g., “I’m say-
ing X”), while the “focus” clause provides a value for this variable (e.g., X
= “breaking up was the only way out”). The wh- clause thus has a “specifi ca-
tional function” in specifying the content of the focus clause as the value of
the variable contained in the wh- clause (2009: 217). Moreover, the wh- clause
is “pragmatically presupposed”; that is, the speaker must assume that the
hearer knows, believes, or is ready to take for granted the content of the wh-
clause. In an ongoing conversation, the fact of the speaker speaking (or having
spoken) is, of course, maximally presupposed (232). They fi nd that the most
common verbs in the wh- clauses of PDE pseudo- clefts are do , happen , say ,
21 The search strings were [punc] all I’m saying [comma] and [punc] what I’m saying [comma].
These were manually sorted to eliminate cases where is followed the comma.