<<
>> As a member of the generation that uses this like:
>> It is not actually freestanding - a grammar has evolved of when it is and
is
>> not used.
>In particular, it is used as a marker of indirect and sometimes even
>direct discourse: standard "I said that P" comes out "I'm, like, P."
I actually find that usage less commonly than as a marker of secondhand
knowledge, but it is used also.
>>
Muffy Siegel at Temple U claims to ahve isolated three usages:
1) The quotation introduction mentioned above
2) a hedge -- what follows is not guaranteed accurate (this is probably the same as the secondhand knowledge case -- the data would overlap, at least). Noted as early as 1985.
3) to introduce an exaggeration -- the extreme of 2 -- guaranteed in accurate but for effect.
The article is in The Journal of Semantics, but I have neithr title nor date to hand.
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