The Evolution of Pragmatic Markers in English Pathways of Change

6.5 Postulated Developments 177

I tell you frankly that I don’t trust Bill > Frankly, I don’t trust Bill.

The disjunct adverbials thus represent “performative residues.”^10 Thus,
Schreiber proposes the following path of derivation:

adjective > manner adverb > style disjunct

Noting problems with Schreiber’s analysis, Mittwoch ( 1977 ) argues for juxta-
position or parenthesis rather than superordination:

I tell you this frankly: I don’t trust Bill > Frankly, I don’t trust Bill.

Greenbaum concludes that such structures may serve as a synchronic analysis
of disjuncts but not as their historical source (1969:  227). Swan ( 1988a :  9,
1991 : 420) ultimately rejects Schreiber’s analysis as well, but notes that, his-
torically, structures such as I tell you briefl y predated the sentence adverbial
briefl y (see below).

6.5 Postulated Developments

6.5.1 Epistemic Parentheticals

The matrix clause hypothesis ( Section 1.4.1.2 ) could provide an intuitively
plausible course of diachronic development for I admit , namely:

(7) a. I admit that it’s a tempting display. >
b. I admit Ø it’s a tempting display. >
c. It’s a tempting display, I admit. (2004 Moyer, The last of the honky- tonk
angels [COCA]) or It’s, I admit , a tempting display.

That is, I admit would begin as a main clause followed by a that - complement
(7a). Loss of that would create an indeterminate structure (7b) leading to
reanalysis of I admit as subordinate, or parenthetical, and of it’s a tempting
display as superordinate, or main clause. Once reanalyzed as parenthetical, I
admit would then be free to move to medial or fi nal position (7c). As argued in
Brinton ( 2008 ), this scenario accounts for some comment clauses, but in other
cases, the historical data do not support such an analysis..
Contra the matrix clause hypothesis, Fischer ( 2007a , 2007b :  297– 312; see
Sections 1.4.1.2 and 5.6.2 ) argues that evidence for the origin of parentheticals
in main- clause constructions alone is weak. Rather, parentheticals result from a
blending of two sources:

(a) independent adverbial clauses, e.g., as/ so I  guess – “paratactic indepen-
dent clauses introduced by an anaphoric connective element in the genitive”
(2007a: 106, 2007b: 305); and

10 The term is Rutherford’s, quoted in Bolinger (1970: 93).