This paper documents the constructionalization of by the same token. Originally, the word same in this phrase did not encode similarity but functioned as an identification emphasizer and a marker of syntactic dependency between the evidential noun token and the clause that followed it. By the same token then acted as a complex subordinator introducing a justification. The data suggest that two non-compositional uses developed from the evidential subordinator during the seventeenth century: a digressive discourse marker and a subordinator combining high degree and consequence. Faced with polysemy and lack of transparency, speakers/hearers then reintroduced some compositionality to the phrase by assigning to same the meaning of similarity that it had elsewhere. From this partial recompositionalization stems today’s elaborative discourse marker. Originally used to connect two consequences of the same premise, it then extended its connective value. It is now polyfunctional and is even often used to connect two contrasting statements. There are signs that it is now often treated by speakers as a member of a constructional network of adversative discourse markers.

This paper is a study of the expression can help, meaning 'can refrain/ avoid'. It focuses on the polarity and the fixedness of this expression and on its complex complementation. A diachronic corpus study shows that this item is no longer best described as a negative polarity item and that it has undergone a process of lexicalization. The second half of this article deals with the complex complementation of can (-ed) not help and, more specifically, with the can (-ed) not help but V-structure. This structure is extragrammatical because there exists no similar construction in contemporary English. However, as will be shown, its use has recently increased at the expense of can (-ed) not help + gerund. This paper will demonstrate that a combination of sociolinguistic, semantic and pragmatic factors, coupled with criteria related to processing ease, may have played a decisive part in this somewhat paradoxical success.

Bottom line occurs in several phrases, including the [(the) N is] construction. Its constructionalization is more advanced than that of other nouns: it can now be used as a true discourse marker, in the left or in the right periphery. The data confirm the influence of position on pragmatic function. Cataphoric bottom line mainly fulfills discursive functions (summation, contradiction, sub-topic shift or topic-resumption), while anaphoric bottom line is an intersubjective expression that signals turn and topic closure and aims at pre-empting potential disalignment. However, the cataphoric discourse marker is also undergoing incipient intersubjectification. This is due to the deletion of the copula, which allows bottom line to have scope over the interlocutor’s discourse rather than simply over its host sentence.

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Le but de cette contribution est d’établir quel rôle les facteurs processuels jouent dans l’évolution de l’acceptabilité à partir de deux études de cas : la complémentation infinitive du verbe help (avec ou sans to) et la distribution de la construction [capacité + help]. Les corpus sélectionnés pour cette étude, en particulier COHA et l’Old Bailey, révèlent que ces facteurs ne contribuent pas simplement à expliquer la basse fréquence des structures marginales, mais peuvent même être considérés comme le moteur initiant le changement linguistique, confirmant ainsi la prédiction de Rohdenburg (2003 : 243). Le principe d’horror aequi (Brugmann 1909) s’avère être le facteur initial ayant mené à la disparition actuelle de to après help et les difficultés de traitement cognitif s’avèrent être responsables de l’obsolescence de la construction [capacité + help]NPI. En limitant la fréquence de certaines structures, ces facteurs processuels contribuent à diminuer la familiarité des locuteurs avec ces structures, ce qui finit par affecter leurs jugements d’acceptabilité, et, à terme, la grammaire de la langue.