RT Journal Article
T1 Peeking into the socio-historical background and current use of ‘me (no) likey’
A1 Rodríguez Abruñeiras, Paula
AB The verb to like has fallen repeatedly under the gaze of scholars. One aspect which has stimulated vigorous discussion is its original use in impersonal constructions and its later change of argument structure along with the disappearance of impersonals from English. Nonetheless, evidence from current informal English shows that like is now used in constructions which bear a close resemblance to the older impersonals, although always displaying alternative spelling variants, especially likey. This paper seeks to further our understanding of the verb to like, focusing specifically on these new constructions. To this end I will use likey as a generic label to refer to such new uses and constructions, regardless of variations in spelling (unless otherwise stated). Using data from the Corpus of Historical American English and iWeb Corpus, the study will seek to answer the following research questions: RQ1. What are the morpho-syntactic features of the expression ‘me (no) likey’ in Present-Day English? RQ2. What is the origin of the sequence ‘me (no) likey’? RQ3. Where do phrasal patterns with likey fall on the continuum of idiomaticity (Michaelis, 2017)?
PB Cambridge University Press
SN 0266-0784
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29284
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/29284
LA eng
NO Rodríguez–Abruñeiras, P. (2022). Peeking into the socio-historical background and current use of ‘me (no) likey’: Historical and online texts in focus. English Today, 1-11. doi:10.1017/S0266078422000049
DS Minerva
RD 23 abr 2026