Mark Liberman's just posted on quotative (and other uses of) like, go, and all. As it happens, Stanford has a modest department project going on innovative uses of all, and I can offer some bibliography on quotatives.
The project, which got underway this fall, was organized by John Rickford in collaboration with Isa Buchstaller, Elizabeth Traugott, and Tom Wasow, and with the participation of a large group of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members. You can access Buchstaller's October 2004 bibliography on quotatives: social and linguistic factors and grammaticalization here.
Notable entries on this bibliography are Buchstaller's 2004 Edinburgh Ph.D. dissertation, The Sociolinguistic Constraints on the Quotative System -- US English and British English Compared, which treats like and go, in contrast to one another and to older quotatives like say; what we believe to be the only published treatment so far of innovative all (both "specifier" uses, as in the title of this posting, and quotative uses), Rachelle Waksler's "A new all in conversation" (American Speech 76.2.128-38 (2001)); and, remarkably, a 1990 (yes, 1990) Stanford undergraduate honors thesis by Ann Wimmer (directed by Rickford). We would of course welcome additions to this bibliography; send mail to Buchstaller (ibuch at-sign stanford dot edu) or Rickford (rickford at-sign csli dot stanford dot edu).
We are well situated for the study of quotative all, since the Bay Area seems too have been its birthplace. But it is spreading fast, and we also welcome sightings (or, more likely, hearings) from other places. As usual, we beg you to supply as much relevant context, linguistic and otherwise, as you can.
zwicky at-sign csli dot stanford dot edu
Posted by Arnold Zwicky at November 15, 2004 09:19 PM