This study utilizes quantitative research methods in performing a
diachronic analysis of the grammaticalization of “gotchu” in
Present-Day-English (PDE). Current literature in the field of
grammaticalization has focused heavily on “get” and the grammaticalization
thereof (Gronemeyer, 1999); crucially, the literature regarding the
grammaticalization of “gotchu”, a newly developed and continually evolving
slang term, remains under-researched. Methodological approaches to this
analysis include extensive review of corpora: specifically, I utilize
Brigham Young University’s Global Web Based English (GloWbE), iWeb, Corpus
of Historical American English (COHA), Corpus of Contemporary American
English (COCA), and additionally, I have extracted data from Twitter using
advanced Twitter searches analyzing the usage of the term “gotchu” in its
various available contexts. Drawing off of 300 cumulative pre-selected
instances of “got + you” and ‘gotchu” I have coded them for their
syntactic, morphosyntactic, morphophonological, semantic, and
discourse-pragmatic development and performed token frequency analyses.
Additionally, I analyze the generalization and bleaching, persistence, and
layering of the hypothesized grammatical form ‘gotchu’s’ lexical and
grammatical function. Preliminary analyses indicate that ‘gotchu’ has
become more morphologically bound and more polysemous; its increased
polysemies have facilitated its wider syntactic scope. Notable evidence for
its wider syntactic scope includes its usage with a null syntactic subject
(ø.subj.) which facilitates a wider range of subjects for the listener to
interpret. This supports my key argument that ‘gotchu’ evolved into a
discourse-particle at the turn of the 21st century.
keywords: grammaticalization, frequency, bleaching, persistence, layering