General Extenders The Forms and Functions of a New Linguistic Category Hardback

General ExtendersThe Forms and Functions of a New Linguistic Category\nAuthor(s): Maryann Overstreet, George Yule\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9781108837231, 978-1108837231\nSynopsis\nGeneral extenders are phrases like 'or something', 'and everything', 'and things (like that)', 'and stuff (like that)', and 'and so on'. Although they are an everyday feature of spoken language, are crucial in successful interpersonal communication, and have multiple functions in discourse, they have so far gone virtually unnoticed in linguistics. This pioneering work provides a comprehensive description of this new linguistic category. It offers new insights into ongoing changes in contemporary English, the effect of grammaticalization, novel uses as associative plural markers and indicators of intertextuality, and the metapragmatic role of extenders in interaction. The forms and functions of general extenders a.