“Me likey!” A new (old) argument structure or a partially fixed expression with the verb like?

Abstract

This paper explores the current use of the verb like in sequences such as “me likey”. This new use is practically limited to modern variant spellings (likey, likee, like-y and likie) and resembles the original (and now obsolete) impersonal structure of the verb in which the experiencer was encoded in the objective case and the verb was used invariably, among other aspects. However, rather than the re-emergence of an impersonal construction, the sequence “me likey” seems to be the result of a situation of language contact and it is in line with the informalisation of English as seen, for example, in the increasing tendency for objective pronouns to be used in subject position in a variety of constructions. In light of the evidence from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the TV Corpus, we can conclude that the sequence is used in highly informal registers, and that it tends to appear in rather formulaic expressions, especially in two-word sequences.

Peeking into the socio-historical background and current use of ‘me (no)likey’

“…In COHA, both me and him were used as subjects, but in iWeb likey combines solely with me . This is in line with the results in Rodríguez–Abruñeiras (2022), as the only objective pronoun combining with likey in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the TV Corpus is me , which is also the most common of all subjects. To some extent, the combination ‘me likey’ would not differ significantly from other impersonal sequences which have fossilised with idiomatic meanings, such as methinks 7 , meseems or melists (see Möhlig–Falke, 2012: 15).…”

“…We can conclude by saying that all these features which characterise the use of likey are in line with the increasing informalisation of the English language, as identified in previous studies. Informalisation is the use of a rather spontaneous and direct style so as to diminish the distance between addresser and addressee (see Farrelly & Seoane, 2012: 395–396; Hiltunen & Loureiro–Porto, 2020: 2; Loureiro–Porto & Hiltunen, 2020: 221 and Rodríguez–Abruñeiras, 2022). In informalisation, ‘language practices more typically associated with everyday life are strategically deployed in public discourse’ (Pearce, 2005: 65).…”

“…Its texts are exclusively taken from web pages, and it is also useful for identifying the most common collocates of a word. Along with its size, iWeb has been selected for another reason: a previous study (Rodríguez–Abruñeiras, 2022) has shown that spoken and online material are the genres in which likey is most frequently used because these involve very informal linguistic productions. Whereas Rodríguez–Abruñeiras (2022) explores oral material, the present paper focuses on online written productions.…”

“…Along with its size, iWeb has been selected for another reason: a previous study (Rodríguez–Abruñeiras, 2022) has shown that spoken and online material are the genres in which likey is most frequently used because these involve very informal linguistic productions. Whereas Rodríguez–Abruñeiras (2022) explores oral material, the present paper focuses on online written productions. As a means of making sure that all potential spellings are covered, I have checked the uses of the form lik *, with a final asterisk, which returned only two spellings relevant to our analysis, namely likey and likee .…”

“…9Due to space limitations, these constructions will not be discussed further here. See Rodríguez–Abruñeiras (2022) for a more detailed explanation.…”