268 What’s More and Whatever
of speaker attitude). The pragmatic/ subjective meanings of the construction
involve the conventionalization of invited inferences ; namely, if something is
“more” than what one might expect, then it can be inferred that it is “more”
in some way, e.g., more surprising, more disturbing, more horrible, etc. The
what’s more construction conforms to Hopper ’s ( 1991 ) principle of specializa-
tion in grammaticalization in that the which is more variant is lost and the what
is more variant remains. Finally, fossilization and fusion in grammaticalization
account for the preponderance of contracted what’s more and the virtual loss
of what was more.
9.5 Whatever in Present- Day English
In Present- day English, whatever has a variety of uses (OED: s.v. whatever ,
pron. and adj.): as an interrogative pronoun (or adjective) (25a), as a relative
pronoun (or adjective) (25b), as an indefi nite adjective (25c), as a general
extender ,^10 frequently preceded by or (25d– e), and in its newest use, as a prag-
matic marker, especially when freestanding (25f):
(25) a. Whatever did happen to K. T. Oslin? (1993 People [COCA])
b. We’re very, very dedicated to doing whatever has to be done to end this
crazy imperialist nonsense (2006 NPR Sunday [COCA])
c. But after years, for whatever reason and whatever fault, a marriage can
grow apart ... (2014 U.S. Catholic [COCA])
d. They go from the environment to animal rights to obesity or whatever.
(2011 Esquire [COCA])
e. the same, it seems to me, would be true, say, for the market in emergency
services; police, fi re, ambulance, roadside assistance, whatever. (NPR
TalkNat [COCA])
f. I defended them on their right to build a community center downtown. You
and I disagree on that. Whatever. But the point is, we defend that, nobody
burns anything there, (2012 Fox_ Five [COCA])
In a draft entry dated May 2001, the OED (s.v. whatever ) gives an uncharacter-
istically copious defi nition of the use exemplifi ed in (25f):
int. colloq. (orig. U.S. ).
Usually as a response, suggesting the speaker’s reluctance to engage or argue, and hence
often implying passive acceptance or tacit acquiescence; also used more pointedly to
10 On general extenders, see, e.g., Overstreet ( 2014 ). A list of the most common forms (e.g., and/
or things/ stuff/ something (like that) ) is given in Overstreet ( 1999 : 4). Kleiner (1998: 608) clas-
sifi es or whatever as what he calls WHATEVER1 , which is used for listing or labeling diffi cul-
ties. It serves to “reassure the hearer that the failure to supply the correct term does not impair
the speaker’s larger discourse goals” (608). Benus , Gravano , and Hirschberg ( 2007 ) refer to
this use as a “fi ller.”