Cover not available

Article published In: Languages in Contrast
Vol. 17:2 (2017) ► pp.205–228

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

I was going to say / j’allais dire as discourse markers in contemporary English and French

 | University Paris Diderot, CLILLAC-ARP EA 3967
Published online: 19 September 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.17.2.03lan
Abstract
This paper investigates two emerging discourse markers based on verbs of saying in English and French – I was going to say and j’allais dire. Relying on various comparable corpora, the author shows that the markers under scrutiny have developed a similar use as “reduced parenthetical clauses” mitigating discourse. The corpus study also reveals an interesting difference, namely that I was going to say stands as a topical transition marker in some of its uses. It is thus hypothesized that the two markers do not exactly follow the same pragmaticalisation path.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Presentation of the data
    • 2.1Comparable data
    • 2.2Selection of relevant occurrences
    • 2.3Distribution across corpora
  • 3.I was going to say and j’allais dire as DMs
    • 3.1 I was going to say and j’allais dire as “reduced parenthetical clauses”
    • 3.2From temporal markers to RPCs: a case of grammaticalisation or pragmaticalisation?
  • 4.Syntactic features
    • 4.1Position
    • 4.2Scope
  • 5.Semantic-pragmatic analysis
    • 5.1 J’allais dire: minimal speaker commitment and denomination
      • Type 1.Coexistence p/p’: reformulation
        • P’, j’allais dire p
        • J’allais dire p, p’
      • Type 2.J’allais dire p/p j’allais dire
    • 5.2 I was going to say: minimal speaker commitment, denomination and topical transition
      • Type 1.Coexistence p/p’: reformulation
      • Type 2.Only p
  • 6.Results
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpora
References (30)
References
Aijmer, Karin. 1997. I think – an English modal particle. In Modality in Germanic Languages. Historical and Comparative Perspectives, T. Swan and O. J. Westvik (eds), 1–47. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Authier-Revuz, Jacqueline. 1995. Ces mots qui ne vont pas de soi. Boucles réflexives et non-coïncidences du dire. Tomes 1 et 2. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berglund, Ylva. 2000. “You’re gonna, you’re not going to”: A corpus-based study of colligation and collocation patterns of the (BE) going to construction in Present-day spoken British English. In PLAC’99: Practical Applications in Language Corpora, B. Lewandowska-Tomaszcyk and P. James Melia (eds), 161–192. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bres, Jacques and Labeau, Emmanuelle. 2012. De la grammaticalisation des formes itive (aller) et ventive (venir): valeur en langue et emplois en discours. In Etudes de sémantique et pragmatique françaises, L. de Saussure and A. Rihs (eds), 143–165. Berne: Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 2008. The Comment Clause in English: Syntactic Origins and Pragmatic Developments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. and Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2005. Lexicalization and Language Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caffi, Claudi. 1999. On Mitigation. Journal of Pragmatics 311: 881–909. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth and Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline. 2015. Grammaticalization or pragmaticalization of discourse markers? More than a terminological issue. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Vol. 16, no. 1, 59–85. [URL]
Dehé, Nicole. 2010. Parentheticals. In The Routledge Pragmatics Encyclopedia, L. Cummings (ed.), 307–308. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Parentheticals in Spoken English: The Syntax-Prosody Relation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Del Saz Rubio, Maria Milagros. 2007. English discourse markers of reformulation. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diewald, Gabrielle. 2013. Same same but different – Modal particles, discourse markers and the art (and purpose) of categorization. In Discourse Markers and Modal Particles: Categorization and Description, L. Degand, B. Cornillie and P. Pietrandrea (eds), 19–45. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dostie, Gaétane. 2004. Pragmaticalisation et marqueurs discursifs. Bruxelles: De Boeck et Duculot. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erman, Britt and Kotsinas, Ulla-Britt. 1993. Pragmaticalization: The case of ba and you know . Studier i modern språkvetenskap, 76–93. New series 10, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. and Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas H. and Smith, Sara W. 1998. And people just you know like “wow”: Discourse markers as negotiating strategies. In Discourse Markers: Descriptions and theory, A. H. Jucker and Y. Ziv (eds), 171–202. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. Vol. 1 & 21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schourup, Lawrence. 1999. Discourse Markers. Lingua 107 (3–4): 227–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steuckardt, Agnès. 2012. Polyphonie et médiativité dans un marqueur émergent: on va dire . In Médiativité, polyphonie et modalité en français. Etudes synchroniques et diachroniques, J. -C. Anscombre, E. Opperman-Marsaux and A. Rodriguez Somolinos (eds), 67–84. Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Urmson, James O. 1952. Parenthetical Verbs. Mind. New Series, Vol. 61(244): 480–496. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corpora
Avanzi, Mathieu, Béguelin, Marie-José and Diémoz, Federica, Présentation du corpus OFRUM – corpus oral de français de Suisse romande. Université de Neuchâtel, 2012–2014, [URL]
Branca-Rosoff, Sonia, Fleury, Serge, Lefeuvre, Florence and Pires, Mat. 2012. Discours sur la ville. Présentation du Corpus de Français Parlé Parisien des années 2000 (CFPP2000), [URL]
British National Corpus (BNC). Oxford University Computing Services, 1995. [URL]
CLAPI corpus: [URL]
Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): [URL]
Corpus de Français Parlé au Québec: [URL]
FRANTEXT. CNRS. Atilf. Université de Nancy 21: [URL] and [URL]
Phonologie du Français Contemporain corpus: [URL]
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Awwad, Mousa, Marwan Jarrah & Ekab Al-Shawashreh
2023. The discourse uses of the verb dire ‘to say’ in Vernacular French: A corpus-based exploration. Cogent Arts & Humanities 10:1 DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Overview of the Corpus Findings. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Defining a Theoretical and Methodological Framework for DMs of “Saying”. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Introduction: Discourse Markers Within Different Linguistic Traditions. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Lansari, Laure
2020. Corpus Findings II: J’allais dire and I Was Going to Say. In A Contrastive View of Discourse Markers, ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo
Bres, Jacques & Emmanuelle Labeau
2018. Des constructions de aller et de venir grammaticalisés en auxiliaires. Syntaxe & Sémantique N° 19:1 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue