Is "like" becoming a topic/object marker in English?

[Buran]

Everybody knows about stereotypical Californian English with "like" for every other word, but I've noticed something about the position of said word. "Like" usually occurs either with the topic of a sentence ("John is like, six feet tall", "Harry like, did a 720 on his board") or with the topic of a sentence ("I like, didn't say anything", "Dave like, punched a hole in that wall"). I just came up with this notion 15 minutes ago, and I've done absolutely no research into it. But I think this is interesting; "like" seems to introduce the most important part of each sentence.

Is "like" becoming a grammatical function word? And if so, what does it do?

[Imralu]

Another potential source of a topic marker is "You know ____? Well"

[clawgrip]

Everybody knows about stereotypical Californian English with "like" for every other word, but I've noticed something about the position of said word. "Like" usually occurs either with the topic of a sentence ("John is like, six feet tall", "Harry like, did a 720 on his board") or with the topic of a sentence ("I like, didn't say anything", "Dave like, punched a hole in that wall"). I just came up with this notion 15 minutes ago, and I've done absolutely no research into it. But I think this is interesting; "like" seems to introduce the most important part of each sentence.

Is "like" becoming a grammatical function word? And if so, what does it do?

I don't think it is necessarily a topic marker. It often seems to be modifying what comes after it to mean "this is an approximation/obfuscation/exaggeration"

"John is like, six feet tall"
"John is six feet tall, or at least something in that vicinity"

"Harry like, did a 720 on his board"
"Harry did a 720 on his board, or at least something in that vicinity"

"I like, didn't say anything"
"I didn't say anything, or at least almost nothing anyway"

"Dave like, punched a hole in that wall"
"Dave punched a hole in that wall, or very nearly did anyway"

[Radius Solis]

Yes, people who use this construction have turned "like" into a grammatical function word, and no, it's not topic marking. Clawgrip points out one purpose of the word that is nothing like topic marking, although that's not the only meaning it can have.

Meanwhile, in grammatical terms, you can see that it is syntactically attached to the predicate, not the subject, because auxiliary verbs and various verb-phrase modifiers come before it, not after:

John: You should, like, get a job or something.
Harry, ironically: Yeah, I've just been, like, sitting on my ass playing Super Mario Bros. every day.

Clearly not topic marking.

[clawgrip]

What would you say its other uses are? I know I might be applying my conclusion to the evidence rather than drawing a conclusion from evidence, so what might some other uses be that are unrelated to the meaning I suggested, namely, "what follows is general/simplistic/inexact/approximate/metaphoric"?

[zompist]

I think Adjective Recoil meant comment marking. In his examples (John is like six feet tall", "Harry like did a 720 on his board) "like" precedes the new information (comment), not the old (topic). I think this isn't coincidental, but it's not quite right.

Linguoboy recently pointed out that "I was like <statement>" is a way of introducing a reaction or judgment, often unspoken. I was like 'Bury me now.'

I feel clawgrip is looking too closely at the etymological meaning. John is like six feet tall doesn't mean the same as John is about six feet tall. In this case it signals a certain wonder or astonishment. A nice example from Get Fuzzy: Bucky the cat is shocked to learn that's not going to grow to be as big as a human, and complains to Rob, "But you're like twelve feet tall."

Often "like" comes across as nudging the listener: "Get this!" And then my Mom like said I was grounded..

Another use is to express tentativeness or irony: I could like grow a goatee and study Japanese.

[2+3 clusivity]

Oh dear lord. I use "like" to the point of being speech pathological, and not in the Californian sense that Clawgrip gave. I have never thought about my use of it. I've thought it was just a replacement for "Um." I'll consider my usage over the day.

[Soap]

What about sentences such as "I got to the store and, like, 600 other people were there waiting to get in"? Is that considered predicate as well?

Or "Like, yee-ha!" when it precedes an interjection. Other than that I dont think it would appear word-initial for most people, but it still can precede the subject of a sentence.

[din]

It's also used for quotation:

So I was like: "Yeah!", and he was like "Really?"


Colloquial Dutch has a similar construction: "dus hij zo van" (so he like POSSESSIVE)

[linguoboy]

It's also used for quotation:

So I was like: "Yeah!", and he was like "Really?"

In the thread Zompist refers to above, I pointed out that "quotative like" is interesting because it can introduce more than just direct quotes. Consider:

Bro: "I then I was all like, fuck you."
Dude: "You said that to her?"
Bro: "No, I just walked away."

It's possible that the words "Fuck you!" actually went through Bro's head in the incident he's relating, but it's just as possible that he's using those words to sum up a violently dismissive nonverbal emotional response.

One of the issues I can see with trying to determine the exact nature of the proposed "topic marker like" is that like already has several distinct uses as a discourse marker. Some people do use it as a general filler, making it acceptable just about anywhere in a sentence. That obviously complicates syntactic argumentation based on contrastive analysis.

[Melteor]

I feel clawgrip is looking too closely at the etymological meaning. John is like six feet tall doesn't mean the same as John is about six feet tall.

When it's used like this it feels like it's missing the 1st argument, which would almost certainly be a dummy "it". I think the expression is similar to "It's like [when]..."

It often seems to be modifying what comes after it to mean "this is an approximation/obfuscation/exaggeration"
"John is like, six feet tall"
"John is six feet tall, or at least something in that vicinity"

Yeah, but that's trivially true because it's [logically] entailed; he might actually be 6 feet tall too. One other way to read that sentence is you're trying to say something about him--e.g. He's healthy/strong/etc.
"I could take Jimmy in a fight."
"He's like, 6 feet tall! You're only 5'3" even if you do weight 160lb. and bench press 200."
'Like' is about guessing a label without committing to it beforehand.

This might have something to do with Austin's "direction of fit", which 1 paper I read insisted was at the root of the Japanese wa/ga distinction but I'm not convinced. Traditional Japanese linguistics says statements with '-ga' are more impartial and objective while those with '-wa' are more judgemental and belie attitudes, and I think that holds up here if we want to draw comparisons.
English::Japanese
like::wa
0::ga
Of course, as Zomp points out, what 'like' is really introducing is the comment that follows, not the topic that precedes it...And 'like' still can be used as just a hedge or an interjection, or a floor-holding word.

[clawgrip]

I'm not especially familiar with direction of fit or how it applies to Japanese topic structure. Do you have any details? I also don't think the basic distinction of objective/subjective is the core meaning either. Nevertheless, I still don't think "like" is at all like Japanese wa.

I also want to point out that it is inaccurate to portray wa and ga as near-equivalents forming a binary choice; doing so is in some ways akin to choosing between fish or salmon. The particle ga specifically represents the grammatical subject of the verb, while wa represents the topic of the clause. A topic need not be a subject; it could be an object or some other element. Examples:

魚は群れで泳ぐ。
Sakana-wa mure-de oyogu.
fish-TPC school-by swim
"Fish swim in schools."
The topic, sakana, is here equivalent to the subject. Sakana-wa could be replaced with sakana-ga without any major semantic change in meaning.
This is a wa vs. ga sentence.

魚は買った。
Sakana-wa katta.
fish-TPC buy-PST
"(I) bought (some/a) fish (but perhaps not other things that were mentioned/expected/implied)."
The topic, sakana, is equivalent to the object. Replacing Sakana-wa with sakana-ga results in "(It was the) fish (that) bought (it)," which is grammatically acceptable, but nonsensical. Therefore, in this case, sakana-wa is equivalent to sakana-o.
This is a wa vs. o sentence.

犬は食べなかった。
Inu-wa tabenakatta.
dog-TPC eat.NEG.PST
"(He) did not eat dog." / "The dog did not eat."
The topic, inu, may be equivalent to subject or object. Inu-wa may be replaced with either inu-ga or inu-o without major semantic change in meaning.
This is a wa vs. ga vs. o sentence.

魚は足がない。
Sakana-wa ashi-ga nai.
fish-TPC foot-SBJ exist.NEG
"Fish do not have feet."
The topic, sakana must take wa; it cannot be replaced by any other particle.
This is a wa-only sentence.

Unless "like" is able to obscure whether something is a subject, object, or something else, I don't think there is any way it can be considered a topic marker, which I guess has already been concluded.

[Melteor]

@clawgrip: The objective/subjective distinction is a traditional analysis and supposedly based on native impressions. I read it in a big book at Barnes & Noble I can't remember that compared a lot of other languages. I wish I could remember what it was, it was fairly recent...

If you have access to Jstor and you search for Fiengo, McClure, Austin and Japanese you should find the full text. You can find a summary of their position in this other paper. See here for more discussion. Like I said, it has problems; their proposal seems to rest on what are, in English, intonational distinctions. Tricky. 'Direction of fit' is supposed to be a philosophical thing, but it feels more like a related phenomenon.

I don't really think there's any such thing as a clear-cut topic marker, it's going to do other things.

[Salmoneus]

I think Adjective Recoil meant comment marking. In his examples (John is like six feet tall", "Harry like did a 720 on his board) "like" precedes the new information (comment), not the old (topic). I think this isn't coincidental, but it's not quite right.

Linguoboy recently pointed out that "I was like <statement>" is a way of introducing a reaction or judgment, often unspoken. I was like 'Bury me now.'

I feel clawgrip is looking too closely at the etymological meaning. John is like six feet tall doesn't mean the same as John is about six feet tall. In this case it signals a certain wonder or astonishment. A nice example from Get Fuzzy: Bucky the cat is shocked to learn that's not going to grow to be as big as a human, and complains to Rob, "But you're like twelve feet tall."

Often "like" comes across as nudging the listener: "Get this!" And then my Mom like said I was grounded..

Another use is to express tentativeness or irony: I could like grow a goatee and study Japanese.

Mirative, nay?

We're also overlooking the British use of 'like', as a tag: "He's twelve feet tall, like." I don't know what the function of that is.

[Hakaku]

Comparing to Japanese, the usage feels a lot more similar to its so-called quoting particle って -tte.

彼って背が高いんだよね～
kare tte se ga takain da yo ne~
"He's like, incredibly tall!"

俺って最低だ。
ore tte saitei da.
"I'm like, the worse."

海を食べたって感じです
umi o tabeta tte kanji desu
"I feel like I ate the entire sea"

誰が食べるって言ったのよ
dare ga taberu tte itta no yo
"Who said that I would eat you?" (quoting example)

But in the case of Japanese, it seems more like it calls attention/focus to a particular element, rather than signal new information. It makes me wonder, though, if there's a strong correlation in other languages between these types of usages and discourse markers that can be used to quote things.

[bulbaquil]

I know "like" does confirm the hyperbolic nature of a hyperbole, e.g.: How are we gonna find Steve in this mess? There's like, 80 billion people here!"

[Skomakar'n]

To me it just feels like the speaker is insecure and can't just state straight facts, but has to add this marker of incomplete certainty. A little bit on the verge of a subjunctive or what ever to call it. It is often accompanied by further insecurity markers, such as 'or something'. Personally, I (very sparingly) use it (and the Swedish counterpart 'typ') for something like 'cirka', denoting approximation or the aforementioned lack of complete certainty. "He's like 180 centimeters tall[, or something]", with which I mean "I believe him to be about 180 tall" ("han är typ 180 centimetrar lång[, eller något]").

[Yng]

once again skomakar'n jumps on the judgewagon