Grammaticalizing Adverbs of English: The Case of still

Abstract

The development in English of sentence adverbs, connectives and discourse markers out of VP adverbs has been the subject of a number of recent studies, many of which liken such changes to grammaticalization, involving parallel syntactic and semantic shifts or reanalyses. This paper examines the recent evolution of the English lexeme still, which has given rise to counterexpectational, concessive-connective and discourse-marking uses in addition to the older spatial and temporal ones. Shifts in position, scope and sense are traced to examine how they become correlated over time; the shifts are found to align only over long time periods. No evidence is found for any qualitative differences among the different periods in the evolution of uses of the adverb, from temporal to discoursal. The findings suggest that these shifts are gradual and context-led.

Multicultural London English and New-Dialect Formation

“…but they were holding him still and everything (9) there is people that's still on the waiting list . and I don't think that's fair (10) Roshan: still there's no days like the old days innit William: exactly In all these different semantic domains still has a core meaning of acknowledging a counter-expectation -a contrast with what might be expected (Lewis, 2020). In (8) still marks continuing lack of movement despite the protagonist's efforts, in (9) still indicates being on the waiting list for a longer period of time than might be expected, and in (10) the contrast is between life in the past and life today.…”