38 Pragmatic Markers: Synchronic and Diachronic
clauses if I may/ might say so , for what it’s worth , and if only provide a testing
ground for a full biclausal origin, which has been postulated for similar insub-
ordinated structures. We will see that the historical evidence for a biclausal ori-
gin is weak in these cases. Analogously, the participial pragmatic marker that
said might be assumed to arise from the fuller form, that having been said , and
the nominal relative construction what’s more might be thought to arise from
a full cleft or pseudo- cleft construction or one with an adjective, but again the
development from full structure to reduced structure does not seen to be sup-
ported by the historical record.
The consequences of these fi ndings for the development of pragmatic mark-
ers are discussed in the concluding chapter.