Invoking scalarity: The development of in fact

Schwenter, Scott A.; Traugott, Elizabeth Closs

doi:10.1075/jhp.1.1.04sch

Article published In: Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 1:1 (2000) ► pp.7–25

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download PDF

Invoking scalarity

The development of in fact

Scott A. Schwenter | Ohio State University

Elizabeth Closs Traugott | Stanford University

Published online: 4 May 2000

https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.1.1.04sch

The discourse contexts are analyzed in which clause-internal in fact developed pragmaticalized meanings and came to invoke scalarity in two domains: epistemic sentence adverb (IPAdv), and additive discourse marker (DM). In both these uses, in fact tightens word to world fit (Powell 1992): the world of epistemic belief in the case of the IPAdv, the world of evaluative, rhetorical perspective in the case of the DM. The analysis therefore provides further evidence for (i) pragmatic ambiguities across these worlds (Sweetser 1990), (ii) subjectification that shifts perspectives from interpersonal (adversative) to personal evaluation (Traugott 1989), (iii) the pragmatic relationship between scalarity, adversativity and additivity (Schwenter 1999). The different orientations of the two uses suggest they are polysemous, not contextually bound.

Cited by (58)

Cited by 58 other publications

Order by:

Jiménez Delgado, José Miguel

2025. 671From Disjunct to Connective: The Particle οὖν in Herodotus’ Histories and its Association with Anaphoric Elements. In Advances in Ancient Greek Linguistics, ► pp. 671 ff.

Potter, John

2025. Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study. ICAME Journal 49:1 ► pp. 47 ff.

JARRETT, DYLAN & PATRÍCIA AMARAL

2023. Usage‐Based Approaches to Semantic Change. In The Handbook of Usage‐Based Linguistics, ► pp. 435 ff.

Pastuch, Magdalena

2023. “From the Speaker’s Point of View” – Subjectification as Pragmatic-Semantic Language Change. Studies in Polish Linguistics 18:4 ► pp. 145 ff.

Beeching, Kate & Ludivine Crible

2022. Crosslinguistic paths of pragmatic development. Pragmatics & Cognition 29:2 ► pp. 195 ff.

Hundt, Marianne & Rahel Oppliger

2022. (The) fact is …/(Die) Tatsache ist …focaliser constructions in English and German are similar but subject to different constraints. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 27:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Inbar, Anna

2022. The Raised Index Finger gesture in Hebrew multimodal interaction. Gesture 21:2-3 ► pp. 264 ff.

Lo Baido, Maria Cristina & Caterina Mauri

2022. The encoding of irrelevance in discourse: tanto between concession and justification. Cuadernos de Filología Italiana 29 ► pp. 151 ff.

Badan, Linda

2021. Verb-based discourse markers in Italian. In Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 325], ► pp. 143 ff.

Lange, Claudia

2021. Basicallyin Singapore English. World Englishes

Lavid-López, Julia

2021. English and Spanish discourse markers in translation. In Corpora in Translation and Contrastive Research in the Digital Age [Benjamins Translation Library, 158], ► pp. 177 ff.

Lo Baido, Maria Cristina

2021. L' allocuzione come veicolo di soggettività: tra enfasi e miratività. Cuadernos de Filología Italiana 28 ► pp. 89 ff.

Wang, Yufang, Shu-ing Shyu, Wayne Schams & Hsun-Chen Chen

2020. Mandarin Chinesebuguo(‘but’) as a metacoherence marker in TV/radio interview talks. Language and Linguistics. 語言暨語言學 21:1 ► pp. 104 ff.

Cuenca, Maria Josep, Sorina Postolea & Jacqueline Visconti

2019. Contrastive Markers in Contrast. Discours :25

Ruskan, Anna

2019. Functional Variation of Discourse Particles in Lithuanian: A Look at Clause Peripheries. Corpus Pragmatics 3:4 ► pp. 303 ff.

Amaral, Patrícia & Manuel Delicado Cantero

2018. Subcategorization and change. In Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 15], ► pp. 31 ff.

FAGARD, BENJAMIN & MICHEL CHAROLLES

2018. Ailleurs, d'ailleurs, par ailleurs :De l'espace à l'humain, de l'humain au discours. Journal of French Language Studies 28:3 ► pp. 351 ff.

Ionescu, Alice & Cecilia-Mihaela Popescu

2018. Les marqueurs de changement de topique du discours en roumain : évolution sémantique et rôle pragmatique. Discours :23

Ranger, Graham

2018. Indeed and in fact: The Role of Subjective Positioning. In Discourse Markers, ► pp. 135 ff.

Shefer, Hagit

2018. The meaning and development of the Hebrew scalar modifierkexol. Topics in Linguistics 19:2 ► pp. 38 ff.

Chen, Jiajun

2017. Dialogicity in dialogue: Deriving Chinese discourse marker bieshuo from the negative imperative. Journal of Pragmatics 110 ► pp. 34 ff.

Crisostomo, C. Jay

2017. The Sumerian Discourse Markers u4-ba and u4-bi-a. Journal of Cuneiform Studies 69:1 ► pp. 49 ff.

Szczyrbak, Magdalena

2017. Modal adverbs of certainty in the rhetoric of Advocates General: a dialogic view. Topics in Linguistics 18:1 ► pp. 48 ff.

Talavira, Nataliia

2017. English orientating constructions denoting location: classification and article use. Lingua Posnaniensis 59:2 ► pp. 101 ff.

Degand, Liesbeth & Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul

2015. Grammaticalization or pragmaticalization of discourse markers?. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 16:1 ► pp. 59 ff.

Hassan, Lamiece, Dawn Edge, Jane Senior & Jenny Shaw

2015. Accounting for Psychotropic Medication Changes in Prisons. Qualitative Health Research 25:7 ► pp. 954 ff.

Maschler, Yael & Deborah Schiffrin

2015. Discourse MarkersLanguage, Meaning, and Context. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ► pp. 189 ff.

Andersen, Gisle

2014. Relevance. In Corpus Pragmatics, ► pp. 143 ff.

Lewis, Diana M.

2014. Discourse patterns in the development of discourse markers in English. Functions of Language 21:1 ► pp. 95 ff.

Lewis, Diana M.

2018. Grammaticalizing connectives in English and discourse information structure. In New Trends in Grammaticalization and Language Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 202], ► pp. 135 ff.

Bondi, Marina

2012. Connectives. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics,

Bondi, Marina

2025. Connectives. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff.

Charolles, Michel & Paola Pietrandrea

2012. En réalité : de la modalisation à l'organisation du discours. Travaux de linguistique n°64:1 ► pp. 111 ff.

Degand, Liesbeth & Benjamin Fagard

2012. Competing connectives in the causal domain. Journal of Pragmatics 44:2 ► pp. 154 ff.

Mišković-Luković, Mirjana & Mirjana N. Dedaić

2012. The discourse marker odnosno at the ICTY: A case of disputed translation in war crime trials. Journal of Pragmatics 44:10 ► pp. 1355 ff.

Sarda, Laure & Michel Charolles

2012. Les adverbiaux prépositionnels : position, fonction et portée présentation du numéro. Travaux de linguistique n°64:1 ► pp. 7 ff.

Reig Alamillo, Asela

2011. The pragmatic meaning of the Spanish construction lo que pasa es que. Journal of Pragmatics 43:5 ► pp. 1435 ff.

Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie & Dominique Willems

2011. Crosslinguistic data as evidence in the grammaticalization debate: The case of discourse markers. Linguistics 49:2

Defour, Tine & Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen

2010. “Positive Appraisal” as a Core Meaning ofwell: A Corpus-Based Analysis in Middle and Early Modern English Data. English Studies 91:6 ► pp. 643 ff.

Wang, Yu-Fang, Pi-Hua Tsai & Ya-Ting Yang

2010. Objectivity, subjectivity and intersubjectivity: Evidence from qishi (‘actually’) and shishishang (‘in fact’) in spoken Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 42:3 ► pp. 705 ff.

Maschler, Yael & Roi Estlein

2008. Stance-taking in Hebrew casual conversation via be'emet (`really, actually, indeed', lit. `in truth'). Discourse Studies 10:3 ► pp. 283 ff.

Pertejo, Paloma Núñez

2008. The Multifunctionality ofIndeedin Contemporary Spoken and Written English. English Studies 89:6 ► pp. 716 ff.

Combettes, Bernard & Annie Kuyumcuyan

2007. La formation des modalisateurs en français : le cas des locutions formées sur vérité. Langue française n° 156:4 ► pp. 76 ff.

Marchello-Nizia, Christiane

2007. Le principe de surprise annoncée. Discours :1

Schwenter, Scott A.

2007. Interview with Elizabeth Closs Traugott. Journal of English Linguistics 35:4 ► pp. 353 ff.

Combettes, Bernard

2006. Du niveau textuel au niveau énonciatif dans la grammaticalisation : le rôle du contexte. Langue française n° 149:1 ► pp. 48 ff.

Combettes, Bernard

2007. Grammaticalisation des marqueurs de topicalisation en français : les expressions du type pour ce qui regarde. Langue française n° 156:4 ► pp. 93 ff.

Jucker, A.H.

2006. Historical Pragmatics. In Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, ► pp. 329 ff.

Aijmer, Karin & Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen

2004. A model and a methodology for the study of pragmatic markers: the semantic field of expectation. Journal of Pragmatics 36:10 ► pp. 1781 ff.

Aijmer, Karin & Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen

2009. Pragmatic markers. In Handbook of Pragmatics, ► pp. 1 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs

2003. From subjectification to intersubjectification. In Motives for Language Change, ► pp. 124 ff.

Nevalainen, Terttu & Matti Rissanen

2002. Fairly pretty or pretty fair? On the development and grammaticalization of English downtoners. Language Sciences 24:3-4 ► pp. 359 ff.

Nicolle, Steve

2002. Review of Blank & Koch (1999): Historical Semantics and Cognition. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 3:2 ► pp. 349 ff.

Arie Verhagen

2002. From parts to wholes and back again. cogl 13:4 ► pp. 403 ff.

Combettes, Bernard & Sophie Prevost

2001. Évolution des marqueurs de topicalisation. Cahiers de praxématique :37 ► pp. 103 ff.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Richard B. Dasher

2001. Regularity in Semantic Change,

[no author supplied]

2006. Bibliography. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, ► pp. 742 ff.

[no author supplied]

2018. Bibliography. In Discourse Readjustment(s) in Contemporary English, ► pp. 335 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.