1.4 Pathways for Development 13Third, the view that pragmatic markers are predominantly a feature of
oral discourse, while not displaced, has been complemented by the view that
pragmatic markers also occur in written discourse (albeit possibly a differ-
ent set of forms with different functions). Thus, the written discourse of past
periods may certainly give evidence of pragmatic- marker use. Ultimately,
a more encompassing view of language has come to prevail, namely, that
all forms of language, both written and spoken, are communicative acts,
and thus even written language is a legitimate subject for pragmatic study.
The view
holds that both spoken and written language are forms of communication produced by
speakers/ writers for target audiences with communicative intentions, and language is
always produced within situational constraints. Therefore, all forms of language that
have survived and provide enough information to contextualize the use, are considered
potential data for historical pragmatics. ( Jucker and Taavitsainen 2013 : 25)
1.4 Pathways for the Development of Pragmatic Markers
The historical study of pragmatic markers over the last thirty years has con-
tributed substantially to our understanding of how conceptual lexical items
develop into procedural pragmatic markers. As observed by Fraser ( 1988 : 24,
1990 : 388), pragmatic markers derive diachronically not from a single gram-
matical source but from a wide variety of sources: verbs, adverbs, adjectives,
conjunctions, interjections , prepositional phrases, (elliptical) clauses. This
section considers some of the major syntactic sources – both single lexical
items and clausal constructions – and traces the paths by which they arrive
at pragmatic- marker status. The section also examines the semantic pathways
that have been proposed to account for the change from conceptual to propo-
sitional meaning.
1.4.1 Syntactic Pathways
A number of syntactic pathways for the development of pragmatic markers
have been identifi ed which trace the development of pragmatic markers either
from lexical items or phrases or from clausal constructions, as I set out in
Brinton ( 2008 : 27– 47; see also 2006 ).
1.4.1.1 From Lexical Item to Pragmatic Marker: Adverbial
Sources. Traugott ( 1982 : 255) is perhaps the fi rst to suggest such a pathway.
She points out that why can develop from an interrogative adverb to a comple-
mentizer (in indirect questions and relatives) to a “hearer- engaging” pragmatic
marker, as shown below using synchronic evidence: