204 Forms of Say
justifi es an extraordinary price. But having said this , it needs also to be rec-
ognized that Japan is in a fair way to gaining time on Leyte (1944 Christian
Science Monitor [COHA])
b. The signifi cance of these achievements not only to the people concerned but
to the entire national economy is obvious. Infl ationary Pressure But having
said that , let’s calmly survey the situation. (1950 New York Times (Letters)
[COHA])
c. TV[s] are not getting sound information about the hungry- nation bloc.
HAVING said that , I must immediately add that whatever may be truthful
or useful in this article is due less to any skill on my part than to my good
fortune (1960 Harpers [COHA])
The concessive sense is often associated with what Kortmann (1991: 8) calls
“unrelated” forms (13a, b), that is, where the participle does not relate to the
subject of the main clause, whereas in temporal/ sequential forms (12a– d),
the “subject- attachment rule” always holds. Loosening of this constraint thus
seems to be associated with the rise of concessive meaning.
7.2.5 Semantic Change in the “That Said” Construction
The change in meaning undergone by the “that said” construction is a
“textbook example” of the “correlated paths of directionality” described
by Traugott and Dasher (2002: 40). In losing its temporal/ sequential mean-
ing (i.e., in no longer referring to words previously uttered), it becomes
non- truth- conditional and non- contentful. In its rhetorical function (as a
hedge/ mitigator plus booster) with politeness uses, it acquires procedural
meaning. As an absolute construction , it always lies outside the syntactic
structure of the clause, but the change from temporal/ sequential meaning
(reference to the preceding clause) to concessive meaning (reference to the
state of the argument) represents expanding scope. We might understand
the change from proximal (“this”) to distal (“that”) reference as refl ect-
ing this increase in scope, from scope over the proposition to scope over
discourse. The construction’s acquisition of concessive meaning shows
increasing subjectivity , and its function as a politeness device shows
increasing intersubjectivity.
7.2.6 Overall Rise in Frequency of the “That Said” Construction
COHA provides evidence for the increasing frequency of that said in the mod-
ern period (see Figure 7.3 ). Active having said that also rises, but at a much
lower rate. That/ this being said/ having been said also increase, but are of low
frequency and are hence not included in the fi gure (see Table 7.1 ). This said is
extremely rare.