The rise of right periphery either in English

摘要: Abstract The history of either as a clause-final, right-periphery marker has seen little intensive research, apart from few isolated studies such Rullmann (2002) and Gast (2013). This is surprising, given the recent interest in parenthetical discourse items controversies surrounding their development (grammaticalization vs. pragmaticalization, other debates). In present study, it first questioned whether (RP-either) could be categorized bona fide example marker, second, how hypothesis emerged that 18th 19th century prescriptivism motivated its sudden shift to become post-negation, clause-final item, replacing now non-standard, neither (e.g. Jespersen 1917, Fitzmaurice Smith 2012). study builds on previous accounts, suggesting use additive focus had grammaticalized resumptive quantifier, post-posed apposition gradually renovating former functions strong negative polarity contexts by process grammaticalization following co-optation (Heine 2013). social stigmatization (RP-neither) an concord at time must therefore have been due simply resulting association with recessive, dialectal or non-standard usage, RP-either rapidly increased earlier range take over those ousted RP-neither during century.