61“inferential so ” (Schiffrin 1987 : 202; Blakemore 1988a ; also 1987: 85, 87, 88,
1988b : 246). In this case, so does not express a causal relation, but “signals that
the following segment is to be interpreted as a conclusion which follows from
the prior discourse” (Fraser 1996 : 188, 1999 : 945, 946, 948– 949) (see 15b).
(15c) provides some PDE corpus examples of this usage:
(15) a. John is sick, so he is home. (Schiffrin 1987 : 211)
Bill insulted Mary. So she left. (Blakemore 1988a : 184)
b. John’s lights are burning, so he is home. (Schiffrin 1987 : 211)
There’s $5 in my wallet. So I didn’t spend all the money then. (Blakemore
1988a : 188)
Susan is married. So , she is no longer available I guess. (Fraser 1999 : 945)
c. I just like this drink that way. So you’re right about me on the whole,
I guess.” (2015 Henry, The idea of love [COCA])
The soft click of computer keys drifted from the music shop’s rear offi ce. So
that was where her friend Luze was hiding. (2015 Mario, The lost concerto
[COCA])
My grandfather was a chemist, and did something with dried fruit. So
I imagined my dad left Warsaw with his father and brother to protect a dried
fruit factory. (2015 Boren, Escape [COCA])
She [li]t a cigarette and ye[ll]ed for Kat to come outside. So the athletic
roommates name was Kat? (2015 Massachusetts Review [COCA])
Note that while (15a) can be paraphrased ‘The result of Bill’s insulting Mary
was that she left,’ (15b) cannot be similarly paraphrased (*’The result of John’s
lights’ burning is that he is home’). Schiffrin defi nes “inference ” as an interpre-
tation which uses background knowledge (1987: 205); in (15b), the statement
following so is a deductive inference which is warranted by the information
‘If John’s lights are burning, John is home, and John’s lights are burning.’ For
Schiffrin , the general function of so is “to preface information whose under-
standing is supplemented by information which has just become shared infor-
mation” (207). Blakemore sees the so in (15b) as introducing a proposition
which is the “contextual implication” of the preceding proposition; so assists
the hearer to process new information in the context of old information and
to understand the way in which two propositions are connected (1988a: 186,
188, 190). In fact, the old information need not be explicitly stated; the speaker
assumes that the information is available to the hearer but that the hearer has
not made the relevant contextual implication (189).^24
“continuative element.” He believes that hwæt þa is ‘inchoative’ in nature, evidenced by the fact that
it never follows ‘and’ or ‘but.’ At the same time, he seems to approve of the translation “so now.”
24 Another pragmatic use of so described by Bolden ( 2009 ) is that of “implementing incipient
action”: “speakers deploy [ so ] to indicate the status of the upcoming action as ‘emerging from
incipiency’ rather than being contingent on the immediately preceding talk” (976). That is,
2.4 Exclamatory Hwæt in Prose