273
9.6 Origin and History of Pragmatic Marker Whateverc. Archie Bunker: Say there, Rosemarie.
Stephanie: Stephanie.
Archie Bunker: Whatever. (1971– 79 All in the family [ http://www.imdb.com/
title/ tt0066626/ quotes] )
d. Whatever , equivalent to ‘that what I meant.’ Usually implied boredom
with topic or lack of concern for a precise defi nition of meaning (1973 To
our returned prisoners of war , U.S. Secretary of Defense, Public Affairs
10 [OED])
e. BLUME (soberly) I’m sorry I did what I did ... Whatever ... And I will
never bother you again. But I hope we can be friends. That’s all. (1973
Blume in love [COHA])
f. “You’re in business, all right. You want it; I get it... Whatever. Those are
my orders.” (1973 Ryder, Trevayne [COHA])
The use of whatever is also discussed in detail in a 1982 article appearing in the
San Francisco Examiner (OED: s.v. whatever ).
There would seem to be two possible syntactic origins for the pragmatic
marker (cf. Zwicky 2011 ):
(a) It might arise from the general extender use ( or whatever ).
(b) It might arise through shortening of a second- person clause of desire or
saying, i.e., whatever you please or whatever you say.
Tagliamonte ( 2016 : 199) suggests that the pragmatic marker may come from
either the general extender use or from the reduced form of whatever happens ,
which functions adverbially (OED: s.v. whatever , def. 3c), as in Tony Blair’s
promise to George W. Bush concerning the Iraq War: “I’ll be with you, what-
ever.”^21 Although this usage is of recent origin and may also imply opposition,
according to the OED, its meaning ‘no matter what, notwithstanding’ seems
rather different from that of the form considered here.
The suggestion that whatever may come from “whatever may be the case”
likewise seems unlikely, as this construction is quite rare and restricted – in
COHA at least – to more formal registers (magazine, news, non- fi ction).
9.6.1 The General Extender: Or Whatever
Although general extenders in Present- day English have been well studied,
or whatever has received little attention, despite its relative frequency. For
example, Denis ( 2015 : 102; also Tagliamonte and Denis 2010 : 347, 362– 363)
fi nds it to be the third most common general extender (after and stuff and or
something) overall and among all but the oldest speakers in the Toronto English
21 See http://www.washingtonpost.com/ news/ worldviews/ wp/ 2016/ 07/ 06/ full- text- annotated- tony- blairs-
2002- iraq- memo- to- george- bush/ (accessed July 12, 2016).