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Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study

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Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study. / Potter, John.
In: ICAME Journal, Vol. 49, No. 1, 27.05.2025, p. 47-64.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Potter, J 2025, 'Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study', ICAME Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 47-64. https://doi.org/10.2478/icame-2025-0004

APA

Potter, J. (2025). Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study. ICAME Journal, 49(1), 47-64. https://doi.org/10.2478/icame-2025-0004

Vancouver

Potter J. Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study. ICAME Journal. 2025 May 27;49(1):47-64. doi: 10.2478/icame-2025-0004

Author

Potter, John. / Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study. In: ICAME Journal. 2025 ; Vol. 49, No. 1. pp. 47-64.

Bibtex

@article{4620a49a49ee4223b84e168a7ec7cdf2,
title = "Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study",
abstract = "[(If the) truth BE told] is an idiomatic construction in English with a number of pragmatic purposes. It can suggest that a proposition is generally known but rarely admitted, or that a proposition is a previously unknown personal admission. It can also act as a pragmatically weaker discourse marker. This study initially looks for early uses in the Early English Books Online (EEBO) corpus, finding examples from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Diachronic changes in the use and form of the construction in American English are then examined using the Corpus of Historical American (Davies 2010), which contains texts written between 1810 and 2020. In COHA the [(if the) truth BE told] construction becomes considerably more frequent after 1980. Coinciding with this increase in frequency the construction becomes more lexically fixed and reduced in length. It also becomes more likely to appear at the left periphery of a clause. In addition, it appears to be moving towards {\textquoteleft}extended intersubjectivity{\textquoteright} (Tantucci 2017). As such, it is increasingly losing its pragmatic purposes of marking a rarely admitted truth or a personal admission, and behaving more like a simple discourse marker, connecting clauses.",
keywords = "subjectivity/intersubjectivity, grammaticalization, frequency effects, discourse markers, lexicalization",
author = "John Potter",
year = "2025",
month = may,
day = "27",
doi = "10.2478/icame-2025-0004",
language = "English",
volume = "49",
pages = "47--64",
journal = "ICAME Journal",
issn = "1502-5462",
publisher = "Walter de Gruyter GmbH",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Diachronic changes to the [(if the) truth BE told] construction – a corpus study

AU - Potter, John

PY - 2025/5/27

Y1 - 2025/5/27

N2 - [(If the) truth BE told] is an idiomatic construction in English with a number of pragmatic purposes. It can suggest that a proposition is generally known but rarely admitted, or that a proposition is a previously unknown personal admission. It can also act as a pragmatically weaker discourse marker. This study initially looks for early uses in the Early English Books Online (EEBO) corpus, finding examples from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Diachronic changes in the use and form of the construction in American English are then examined using the Corpus of Historical American (Davies 2010), which contains texts written between 1810 and 2020. In COHA the [(if the) truth BE told] construction becomes considerably more frequent after 1980. Coinciding with this increase in frequency the construction becomes more lexically fixed and reduced in length. It also becomes more likely to appear at the left periphery of a clause. In addition, it appears to be moving towards ‘extended intersubjectivity’ (Tantucci 2017). As such, it is increasingly losing its pragmatic purposes of marking a rarely admitted truth or a personal admission, and behaving more like a simple discourse marker, connecting clauses.

AB - [(If the) truth BE told] is an idiomatic construction in English with a number of pragmatic purposes. It can suggest that a proposition is generally known but rarely admitted, or that a proposition is a previously unknown personal admission. It can also act as a pragmatically weaker discourse marker. This study initially looks for early uses in the Early English Books Online (EEBO) corpus, finding examples from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Diachronic changes in the use and form of the construction in American English are then examined using the Corpus of Historical American (Davies 2010), which contains texts written between 1810 and 2020. In COHA the [(if the) truth BE told] construction becomes considerably more frequent after 1980. Coinciding with this increase in frequency the construction becomes more lexically fixed and reduced in length. It also becomes more likely to appear at the left periphery of a clause. In addition, it appears to be moving towards ‘extended intersubjectivity’ (Tantucci 2017). As such, it is increasingly losing its pragmatic purposes of marking a rarely admitted truth or a personal admission, and behaving more like a simple discourse marker, connecting clauses.

KW - subjectivity/intersubjectivity

KW - grammaticalization

KW - frequency effects

KW - discourse markers

KW - lexicalization

U2 - 10.2478/icame-2025-0004

DO - 10.2478/icame-2025-0004

M3 - Journal article

VL - 49

SP - 47

EP - 64

JO - ICAME Journal

JF - ICAME Journal

SN - 1502-5462

IS - 1

ER -