The imperative of intentional visual

perception as a pragmatic marker

A contrastive study of Dutch, English and Romance*

Daniël Van Olmen

University of Antwerp (Belgium)

This article is a synchronic study of the imperatives of intentional visual percep-

tion as pragmatic markers in English and Dutch. It examines the frequency of
‘look’ and kijk in spoken language, the types of text in which they occur and,
above all, the way in which they are used. On the basis of cross-linguistic data
from Romance, the article explores the development of the various uses of
the imperative of intentional visual perception. It also addresses the question
whether this development is a case of grammaticalization or not.

Keywords: imperative, pragmatic marker, grammaticalization, Dutch/English/

Romance

1. Introduction

The topic of the present article is the use of the imperative of intentional visual
perception as a pragmatic marker of what has traditionally been called attention-
getting, as in examples 1 and 2.
(1) No I’ve enjoyed doing it. Look the thing is if you’re in this kind of work
you’ve to have plenty of other interests on the other side your side of life.
And I have plenty of other interests. (s1b026.227–229)1
(2) Jemig wat een moeilijke vraag of je Bach had willen zijn. Kijk Bach Bach zelf
zal waarschijnlijk lang zoveel plezier niet aan zijn muzie uh muziek hebben
beleefd als ik eraan beleef. (fn007235.122–123)
“My God what a hard question whether you would have liked to be Bach.
Look Bach Bach himself will probably not have enjoyed his musi uh music
to the same extent as I enjoy it.”

Languages in Contrast 10:2 (2010), 223–244.  doi 10.1075/lic.10.2.06van

issn 1387–6759 / e-issn 1569–9897 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
224 Daniël Van Olmen

This use is very well-studied in Romance (e.g. Pons Bordería, 1998: 182–193 on

Spanish; Cuenca and Marín, 2000 on Catalan; Waltereit, 2002 on Italian; Dostie,
2004: 109–122 on (Canadian) French). The literature on the Germanic languag-
es, on the other hand, is surprisingly limited (e.g. De Vriendt, 1995: 154–155 on
Dutch; Brinton, 2001 on English; Bergs, 2003: 2–5 on Lower Rhineland German).
The study of ‘look’ and its Dutch counterpart kijk aims to fill the gap.
The focus is on the following three issues. First, we examine the degree to
which the seemingly similar markers in examples 1 and 2 resemble each other.
‘Look’ and kijk are compared with respect to frequency, distribution and usage
(Section 2). This analysis is a more exhaustive version of the one in Van Olmen
(2010). Second, we take up the suggestion in Waltereit (2002: 1008) that “a com-
parison of the DMs [i.e. discourse markers] resulting from the imperative ‘look!’
in several languages might … provide interesting insights into the typical sequence
of changes.” The findings on English and Dutch are contrasted to what is known
about Romance, in order to get a clearer picture of the development of the impera-
tive into a pragmatic marker (Section 3). Third, we take a critical look at the debate
about which phenomena fall under the heading of grammaticalization. In the last
decade, the use of the imperative of intentional visual perception in contexts like
those of examples 1 and 2 has become a topic in this discussion (Section 4). Lastly,
we sum up the main points of the article (Section 5).

2. English and Dutch

2.1 Frequency and distribution

At first sight, a contrastive study of ‘look’ and kijk may seem of no particular inter-
est, as examples 1 and 2 are just too similar. But the quantitative results in Table 1,

Table 1.  ‘Look’ and kijk in comparable corpora of British English and Northern Dutch.
English Dutch
Lex Prag Vag Misc Lex Prag Vag Misc
Dialogue Private 15 23 3 5 16   41 6 2
Public  2  7 0 0  4   65 1 0
Total 17 30 3 5 20 106 7 2
Monologue Unscripted 11  1 0 0  7   14 0 1
Scripted  4  1 0 0  0    0 0 0
Total 15  2 0 0  7   14 0 1
Total 32 32 3 5 27 120 7 3
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 225

from a 600,000-word corpus of spoken British English and a comparably compiled

300,000 word corpus of spoken Northern Dutch, are a true eye-opener.2 Table 1
gives, for each subcorpus, the number of imperatival forms of ‘look’ and kijken
which have a pragmatic function (cf. examples 1 and 2), which are of a lexical
nature (cf. examples 3 and 4), which are vague between a pragmatic and a lexical
meaning (cf. examples 5 and 6) and, finally, which do not really fall into any of the
three preceding categories (cf. examples 7 and 8).
(3) But look closer and you can see the hand of man. (s2b027.101–102)
(4) Kijk dat is Kahn … Ook al wist je ’t niet zie je dat het een Duitser is.
(fn000728.205–212)
“Look that is Kahn … Even if you did not know it you see that he is
German.”
(5) Well well just feed in some of your tapes and say look this is what you’ve got
to do. (s1a056.32)
(6) Kijk Koos joh ik zie hier wat uh spul voor me liggen … en daar wil ik gewoon
één deal van maken (fn000876.176–181)
“Look Koos mate I see some uh stuff lying in front of me here … and I just
want to turn it into a single deal.”
(7) Look after yourself now. (s1a098.140)
(8) Kijk uit. (fn007393.128)
“Be careful.”

In examples 3 and 4, the lexical meaning of intentional visual perception is still

clearly present. The imperatives in these examples are genuine directives to look.
‘Look’ in example 5 can be interpreted both as a call on the addressee to watch the
tapes and as a pragmatic marker in the very frequent position at the beginning of
a quotation (cf. Section 2.2). Kijk in example 6 is vague too. The vocative and joh
suggest that it is an attention-getting device but it may also relate to what is in front
of the speaker. The imperatives in examples 7 and 8 are of a lexical nature but are
regarded as miscellaneous here because the meaning of intentional visual percep-
tion is in the background (cf. ‘take care of ’ in example 7 and ‘be careful’ in 8).
The data in Table 1 point to some important differences between English and
Dutch. First, ‘look’ is much less closely associated with pragmatic meanings than
its Dutch counterpart. The imperatival forms of ‘look’ and kijken that still have
a lexical meaning account for 55% and 24% respectively. Second, there is a huge
difference in frequency between both items as pragmatic markers. ‘Look’ has a
discourse frequency of 5 cases per 100,000 words while kijk has one of 40 cases per
100,000 words. The observation raises the question whether or not this distinction
226 Daniël Van Olmen

is a reflection of a wider range of uses in Dutch (cf. Section 2.2). Third, it is not

really surprising that neither ‘look’ nor kijk are very frequent in the subcorpus of
monologues. As so-called attention-getting devices, they are more likely to occur
in interactive contexts. In the subcorpus of dialogues, there does appear to be a
difference between English and Dutch. ‘Look’ may occur in public dialogue but is
much more common in private dialogue. Kijk, however, is frequent in both types
of dialogue.

2.2 Usage3

Imperatives of intentional visual perception can, of course, function as directives

to look at something, as in examples 3 and 4. What is interesting about examples
9 and 10 is that the imperatives are used to draw the addressee’s attention to some
important piece of visually accessible information. The people in example 9 are
discussing an image and, by means of kijk (and gestures, probably), the second
speaker focuses on specific elements of the picture and guides the interlocutor
through it. From an information-structural point of view, these turn-medial cases
of kijk and the last one in particular can be said to introduce a new subtopic, i.e.
the existence of an abstract ray of sunlight. The turn-initial example of ‘look’ in
example 10 is used to point to a photograph that is contextually given but offstage
at the time of speaking. The imperative can thus be thought of as presenting a
renewed topic. Moreover, this reference to a visible and therefore verifiable and
reliable component of the speech event gives speaker C the opportunity and, in
a sense, the right to interrupt A, who has done most of the talking so far, and to
change the flow of the conversation.
(9) A Wat mooie zonnestraal. Hè?
“What a beautiful ray of sunlight. Isn’t it?”
B Oh wow. Oh cool. Oh hier is er nog meer hè kijk? En hier. Kijk da’s een
abstracte zonnestraal. Hoe vind je die? (fn000446.208–213)
“Oh wow. Oh cool. Oh there’s even more here isn’t there look? And here.
Look that’s an abstract ray of sunlight. What do you think of it?”
(10) A My room is such a pit I can’t believe it.
B Cor.
C ’Tis isn’t it.
A What a pit. I keep tidying it up.
C Oh look. There’s the photo.
B I know. (s1a040.42–51)

Note that English as well as Dutch possess (semi-)formulaic expressions with im-
peratives of intentional visual perception in which the original semantics are still
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 227

present but which have developed more subjective overtones. ‘Look at that’, which
is categorized as an expressive directive in De Clerck (2006: 401), fits this descrip-
tion. In example 11, there is clearly something to look at but, first and foremost,
the imperative seems to convey B’s admiration.
(11) A Will anyone congratulate me on my cooking.
B Oh look at that.
C Wow marvellous [unclear].
A Uh this is comes entirely from Marks and Spencer’s. (s1a020.285–288)
(12) A Ah kijk. Daar komt Peter op de fiets aan. Da’s sportief.
“Ah look. There’s Peter he’s on his bike. That’s athletic.”
B Op de fiets?
“On his bike?”
A Ja. Kijk ’ns aan. (fn008051.235–240)
“Yes. Look at that.”

The Dutch fixed expression kijk eens aan, which contains the mitigator eens (or ’ns)
and the particle aan “on”, behaves in a similar way. In example 12, it expresses the
speaker’s surprise at Peter’s athleticism. Another important distinction between
the cases of ‘look’ and kijk in examples 9 and 10 and those in 11 and 12 concerns
information. The former point to new or renewed information, which is typically
explicitly mentioned after the imperatives. The latter, which often make up a full
discourse turn on their own, are reactions to given information.
As examples 13 and 14 make clear, the meaning of ‘look’ as well as kijk can
shift from the purely physical domain to the mental domain. In the illustration of
the company’s success in example 13, it comes close to ‘consider’. In the reminder
in example 14, it is almost like ‘remember’.
(13) I mean there’s no point in competing. Why don’t you come in with us.
… And then because of what you’ve done uhm you know you’ll become
wealthy. And look at the efficient marvellous commercial enterprise we’ve
produced. (s1b005.116–123)
(14) Ik mag toch vinden dat deze plaat gewoon niet goed genoeg is. Dream Theater
kan beter. Kijk maar naar wat ze op Train of Thought hebben gedaan. (http://
www.metalfan.nl/reviews.php?id=3673, last accessed 24 August 2009)
“I am allowed to think that this album is just not good enough. Dream
Theater can do better. Just look at what they have done on Train of Thought.”
(15) a. Look what happened to Jimmy Carter. (s2b021.12)
b. Kijk maar wat er de laatste jaren gebeurd is. (http://www.tonmagazine.
nl/images/upload/TON20_pensioen.pdf, last accessed 25 August 2009)
228 Daniël Van Olmen

“Just look what has happened in the last few years.”

This semantic change is not so strange. Sweetser (1993: 38), for instance, argues
that looking at something and thinking about something are similar: “The ability
to pick out one stimulus at will from many is a salient characteristic of vision and
of thought.” Moreover, if someone is looking at something, he or she is also men-
tally focused on it. Note, in passing, that the sentences in example 15 show that the
prepositions ‘at’ and naar can be omitted in cases like 14.
The imperatival forms of ‘look’ and kijken in examples 16–22 are the ones that
are frequently described as attention-getting devices (Romero Trillo, 1997: 209; De
Clerck, 2006: 168). The common co-occurrence with vocatives, like in example 16,
indicates that this label definitely covers part of the function. Just like in examples
9 and 10, there is an appeal to the addressee to pay attention. The object of atten-
tion is not the same, however. In example 16, the interlocutor is urged to consider
what is said rather than what is visible.
(16) Look Dani. You don’t know what you’re speaking about. (s1a038.138–139)

But the characterization of imperatives such as ‘look’ in example 16 as attention-

getting devices is not satisfactory. The suggestion that they can easily be substi-
tuted by particles such as ‘hey’ and hé is wrong. What is typical of ‘look’ and kijk
is that the speaker is committed to what follows or, in other words, that, in his of
her opinion, the rest of the utterance is an important and truthful contribution to
the conversation. In example 17, for example, ‘look’ introduces and puts empha-
sis on the interpretation of David’s painting that B believes is the right one. The
turn-medial use of kijk in example 18 presents the following step in the speaker’s
reasoning, which is marked by ik denk (‘I think’) too. The speaker’s involvement is
also clear from the lack of real questions after ‘look’ and kijk. As has been observed
before by De Vriendt (1995: 155) for Dutch, the questions that come after these
pragmatic markers tend to reflect the speaker’s perspective and to be rhetorical, as
in examples 19 and 20. It is obvious in the former example that B is not expecting
a reply and that he assumes that the answer is negative. The question in the latter
example does not require an answer either. It is an expression of the salesman’s
contention that, all in all, the price of his products is not that high. In view of the
discussion in this paragraph, which highlights the important role that ‘look’ and
kijk play in argumentation (cf. De Vriendt, 1995: 154–155), we will use the term
‘argumentation marker’ rather than ‘attention-getting device’ for the imperatives
of intentional visual perception in examples 16–22.
(17) A Particular side of the picture plane that is imposed on David’s painting
[unclear].
B No not at all.
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 229

A And uhm using the painting until you can see light.
B No I mean look look. David compositionally tells the whole [unclear]
when he distorts the head in order so it will fit in. (s1b008.68–73)
(18) Nee dus je kunt niet zien aan wie die ’t allemaal stuurt … en kijk ik denk als
je zo’n mailtje duizend keer rondstuurt dat er misschien allicht één of twee
mensen zijn die reageren. (fn000283.270)
“No so you can’t see who they send it to … and look I think if you forward
such a mail a thousand times that there will perhaps probably be one or two
people who will respond.”
(19) A Oh my darling! Oh call me by that name you always called me to show
your love is still strong.
B Ah yes, look, do you think this is quite the time or the place for that sort
of thing?
A Please! (http://www.suslik.org/Humour/FilmOrTV/BlackAdder/ba2–2.
html, last accessed 28 April 2009)
(20) Kijk wat is duur? Om daar ’ns mee te beginnen. (fn000882.22–23)
“Look what does pricey mean? Just to start with that.”

From an information-structural perspective, the argumentation markers are very

similar to the imperatives in examples 9 and 10: they present (re)new(ed) infor-
mation, such as the supposedly correct analysis of David’s painting in example 17,
and they are used to (re)introduce a (sub)topic, which is nicely illustrated by om
daar ’ns mee te beginnen in example 20. More often than not (cf. example 18 for
one of the exceptions), the actual message is at odds with what has been said by the
others. Consider, for instance, the reproaches in 16 and 19, the counterargument
in 17 and the qualification in 20. The ‘conflicting’ nature of utterances headed by
‘look’ and kijk is particularly evident in cases like 21, in which the preceding state-
ment is repeated (and possibly acknowledged) and subsequently challenged (often
after a contrastive conjunction) and which are especially frequent in the Dutch
part of the corpus of Table 1.
(21) Nou kijk ja aan aan de ene kant heb ik daar ook wel wat tegen maar aan de
andere kant die man heeft ’t zelf verdiend. (fn000616.144)
“Now look yes on on the one hand I can’t really stand that either but on the
other hand that man has worked for it.”

Note, as a final point, that the argumentation markers ‘look’ and kijk also play an
important part at the level of turn management. The call on the addressee to pay
attention and the sense that a significant piece of information is coming next are
the reasons why, in turn-initial position as in example 17, the pragmatic markers
230 Daniël Van Olmen

can be used to cut someone’s turn short and take the floor and why, in turn-medial
position as in 18, they can function as turn-keeping devices. But obviously, not
all instances of ‘look’ and kijk have a role in turn management. The turn-initial
example in 22 is a case in point.
(22) A Have some banana bread.
B Look. I’m not that much of a banana bread eater. (s1a010.183–185)

The offer that A makes is a complete turn and calls for a positive or a negative re-
sponse by the addressee. Speaker B is thus not interrupting anyone but makes use
of ‘look’ to draw A’s attention to the conflicting fact that she does not really like
banana bread.
Another use of both ‘look’ and kijk, which is related to the argumentation
markers’ floor-keeping function and which does not require much elaboration,
is that in contexts of hesitation as shown by example 23. The imperatival form of
kijken is mainly filling a possible gap here.
(23) Dus ik wil uh kijk als ik een uh netto transactie zou moeten doen dat uh dat
zien we dan toch niet zitten. (fn000890.66)
“So I want uh look if I had to do a uh net transaction we uh we don’t really
feel like doing that.”

‘Look’ and kijk differ, however, from a real pause filler such as ‘uh’, in that they do
not seem to occur in between elements of the same phrase and in that their use
typically brings about a radical reorganization of the utterance. In example 23, the
original sentence dus ik wil is broken off after kijk while the second uh appears in
the middle of the noun phrase een netto transactie.
As has already been observed by De Clerck (2006: 462), there is a peculiar
link between ‘look’ and quotations in the English corpus here: nearly two-thirds
of the pragmatic uses “occur in instances of reported speech of what one said or
of what one (either speaker, addressee or some third party) would or could say.”
In example 24a, ‘look’ can still be understood as a quoted argumentation marker.
But in example 24b, it appears to be “signalling the onset of the quotation itself ”
(De Clerck, 2006: 462).
(24) a. It was an architect who was one of the audience, who had a word with
Martin afterwards and said look I uh don’t believe that. (s1a073.156)
b. But I I I could even try going in there and just saying look uhm get a
few off them and then saying look uhm I’m part of a a s student’s centre.
(s1a079.249)

Probably, the most straightforward explanation for this quotation-initial use of

‘look’ is that speakers draw on it in order to evoke the dynamics of the original
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 231

conversation or real direct speech in general. It is worthy of note, in this respect,

that ‘look’ combines with other pragmatic items like ‘well’, ‘listen’ and ‘hey’ in ap-
proximately half of the cases. It is thus safe to say that the markers in example 24
are not of the same order as, say, the quotative use of ‘like’. Moreover, it seems that
there are no languages in the world with a quotative marker that has evolved out
of an imperative of intentional visual perception (Ad Foolen, p. c.).
(25) De kapper zei: “Kijk, ik geloof niet dat God bestaat.” (http://www.msei.nl/
showthread.php?p=1161, last accessed 28 April 2009)
“The hairdresser said: ‘Look, I don’t believe that God exists.’ ”

As example 25, retrieved via a Google search, shows, kijk can also occur at the
beginning of a fragment of reported speech. But the fact that none of its many
instances in the corpus function this way suggests that the quotation-initial use
is much less well-established in Dutch.4 It is not immediately clear why this is the
case.
The final two uses in examples 26 and 27 are characteristic of Dutch. In 26, kijk
is in utterance-final position and expresses A’s surprise at the information that he
has just received. In the dialogue on a couple of figurines in example 27, it func-
tions as a backchanneling device: a short comment by the listener — like ‘yeah’,
oh or mm-hu — to signal that he or she is paying attention and to encourage the
speaker to go on. The combination with ja is significant, but it has to be empha-
sized that kijk can fulfill this function on its own.5
(26) A ’t Is aanstaande dinsdag?
“It’s this Tuesday?”
B Ja.
“Yes.”
A Aanstaande dinsdag al? Oh kijk. (fn000322.53–56)
“Already this Tuesday? Oh look.”
(27) A Die heeft ze mooi in de kamer staan.
“She has put that one at a nice spot in the room.”
B Oh.
“Oh.”
A Heeft ze op een mooi tafelke staan … En Jozef die is gesneuveld.
“She has put it on a nice little table … And Joseph that one has perished.”
B Ja kijk.
“Yes look.”
A En daar heeft ze ’t kopke van heeft ze in een bloempot gezet … Heb
je dat niet gezien? Daar heeft ze ’t nog over gehad. Die bloem is gauw
uitgebloeid. Zie de dat?
232 Daniël Van Olmen

“And she has put the little head of that one she has put it in a flower pot
… Haven’t you seen that? She has talked about it. That flower does not
last very long. Do you see that?”
B Mm-hu. (fn000946.236–248)6
“Mm-hu.”

It is also important to note that these uses and those in examples 11 and 12 share
what may be called a retrospective orientation. Unlike the imperatives in examples
9 and 10 and the uses in 13–25, they do not point to new or renewed information
but acknowledge what is already visible to everyone (cf. example 11), what has
just been said (cf. 27) and what has just been established (cf. 12 and 26). Another
property that the expressive directives in examples 11 and 12 and especially the
utterance-final use of kijk in example 26 share is that they are all clear markers of
speaker attitude.
To conclude this section, Figure 1 gives an overview of the various uses of
‘look’ and kijk. It also sums up the similarities and differences in usage between
the two languages (cf. the full line for English, the dashed line for Dutch). The
answer to the question in Section 2.1 whether or not the higher frequency of kijk
correlates with a wider range of uses appears to be positive at first sight. There are,
however, only five cases of kijk as a backchanneling device or an utterance-final
expressive in the corpus. In other words, the differences in Figure 1 do not explain
the differences in Table 1.7

directive to look (9-10) Dutch

quotation-initial marker (24-25) expressive directive (11-12)
directive to consider (13-15) utterance-final expressive (26)
argumentation marker (16-22) backchanneling device (27)
English hesitation phenomenon (23)

Figure 1.  The usage of ‘look’ and kijk.

3. Cross-linguistic comparison

As mentioned in Section 1, the aims here are to compare the pragmatic markers
“resulting from the imperative ‘look!’ in several languages … [and, in this way,
to] provide interesting insights into the typical sequence of changes” (Waltereit,
2002: 1008). The findings on English and Dutch in Figure 1 and Section 2.2 are
compared to those on Italian, Spanish and Canadian French in the literature. For
reasons of space, it is not possible to illustrate all the uses of guarda, mira and
regarde respectively.
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 233

The most striking parallel (and, undoubtedly, the most straightforward one
too) between these five languages is that their imperatives of intentional visual
perception can all function as directives to look and as argumentation markers.
Consider the Spanish examples 28 and 29.
(28) Dice:“¿Sabes quién es?” Digo: “No.” Dice: “Mira aquella niña rubia.” (Romero
Trillo, 1997: 214)
“He says: ‘You know who she is?’ I say: ‘No.’ He says: ‘Look at that blonde
girl.’ ”
(29) Mira, Fernando, vamos a dejarlo, si tú quieres … Más vale que te calles.
(Cuenca and Marín, 2000: 233)
“Look, Fernando, let’s drop it, if you want to … You’d better shut up.”

This observation is in line with the uncontroversial claim that the argumentation
marker comes from the directive to look. The scenario that Waltereit (2002: 995–
1000) proposes for this alteration of the imperative’s scope from the physical to
the discourse world starts from the turn managament properties of the directive to
look in interruption contexts like that in example 10. In general, a speaker is only
allowed to take the floor in conversation when the previous turn is completely over
or when he or she is designated to be next by the previous speaker. But interrup-
tions can be acceptable if the speaker’s contribution is (more) important (than the
turn in progress). For that reason, “a candidate interrupter must make the high
relevance of what [he or] she has to say immediately obvious to the conversa-
tion partners” (Waltereit, 2002: 996). An utterance initiated by a directive to look
enables the speaker to do that: it points to some piece of visually accessible infor-
mation that the other interlocutors are probably not aware of and that may be so
temporary or so significant that they need to pay attention to it straight away. Sub-
sequently, “speakers will simply say ‘look!’ in order to be allowed to begin a turn
before the next transition-relevance place. Still, they may consider what they have
to say as particularly important” (Waltereit, 2002: 998). Thus, the conversational
implicature of the directive to look, i.e. the speaker’s contribution is important,
can be said to be conventionalized. An argumentation marker is born.
The turn-initial use of the imperative of intentional visual perception plays
a crucial part in Waltereit’s (2002) proposal and one might expect there to be a
language in which the argumentation marker is restricted to this position (for the
moment). The fact that it can occur turn-medially in all five languages suggests
that the interruption scenario may be too narrow. In this respect, it is interesting
to note that approximately half of the argumentation markers in both the English
and the Dutch corpus occupy a turn-medial position –like in examples 1, 2 and
18. Moreover, as example 9 illustrates, the directive to look can actually also be
234 Daniël Van Olmen

used within turns, in a manner that has much in common with the turn-medial
argumentation marker. They share the call on the addressee to pay attention, the
‘prospective’ orientation, the presentation of a (re)new(ed) (sub)topic — e.g. the
abstract ray of sunlight in example 9 and the next step in the argument in example
18 — and, most importantly from the point of view that “functional change may
be provoked by speakers who use a form in a new way that serves a frequently oc-
curring communicative purpose” (Waltereit, 2002: 999), the role of floor-keeping
device. In a broader scenario, which is in line with the basic notions of the pro-
posal in the preceding paragraph, the argumentation marker can thus be regarded
as the product of the (mis)use of the directive to look in situations in which there
is nothing to look at but in which the speaker is trying to take or keep the floor and
is claiming that he or she has something significant to say or add.8
Another use that is found in all five languages is the directive to consider. Re-
garde in example 30, for instance, is very much like ‘look’ in 13: “The speaker uses
the marker to provide the addressee with an example” (Dostie, 2004: 112).9
(30) Faut parler français, parce que, regarde en Louisiane, en plein cœur des États-
Unis, ça parle juste français. (Dostie, 2004: 121)
“You have to speak French, because, look in Louisiana, in the heartland of
the United States, people only speak French.”

As mentioned in Section 2.2 and Sweetser (1993: 33), the fact that “vision verbs
commonly develop abstract senses of mental activity” is not surprising in view
of the numerous links between sight and knowledge/thought. What is interesting
about the examples of the change from physical to mental vision in example 1510
is that ‘look’ and kijk take a direct object rather than the ordinary prepositional
object. On the surface, these directives to consider look somewhat like argumenta-
tion markers, which do not have prepositions either and which are also followed
by a clause. It is therefore not unreasonable to hypothesize that the structures in
example 15 constitute a stage in the rise of the imperative of intentional visual
perception as an argumentation marker and thus that the directives to consider
are reanalyzed as parenthetical adjuncts (cf. Brinton, 2001: 195 for a comparable
analysis of the history of ‘look’). This scenario is not unproblematical, however.
The structure in examples 9 and 10, i.e. a syntactically independent directive to
look followed by a statement (which is very similar to the structure of an utter-
ance initiated by an argumentation marker), is so common in spoken language
that the directive to consider seems a detour. Moreover, in contrast to Waltereit’s
(2002) proposal, which goes straight from the directive to look to the argumenta-
tion marker and which has a pragmatic motivation, it is not clear why reanalysis
should occur. A final problem for any scenario that involves the reanalysis of a
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 235

matrix clause and a complement clause is that, because of the difference in word
order, it is hard to ‘confuse’ a subclause with a main clause in Dutch.
There are two uses of the imperatives of intentional visual perception that
are related to their use as an argumentation marker but that are best regarded as
further developments of this use in light of cross-linguistic data. The first one is
the quotation-initial use. It is well-established in English and Italian (Waltereit,
2002: 993). In Dutch as well as in Spanish (Maria J. Cuenca, p. c.) and in French
(Gaétane Dostie, p. c.), the imperative of intentional visual perception may serve
as a pragmatic marker at the beginning of a fragment of reported speech too, but
the use is not as deep-rooted and bleached as in English and Italian. In Waltereit
(2002: 1001), the quotation-initial use is explained in terms of the interruption
scenario: “The change-of-speaker side-effect (or maybe only the topic-shift side-
effect) of the imperative is preserved in this DM use.” But this claim — especially
the part outside the parentheses — is debatable. In the broader scenario proposed
above, the emergence of the imperative’s pragmatic function is not necessarily as-
sociated with interruption contexts and with a change of speaker. Moreover, in
several examples in the corpus of English, one of which is given in example 24b,
‘look’ introduces a quotation which has the same speaker as the previous quota-
tion of the reported conversation or which is not even part of a dialogue at all.
A more plausible account is that speakers overuse the argumentation marker to
“liven up the reported speech” (De Clerck, 2006: 462) (cf. Section 2.2).
The second use of the imperative of intentional visual perception that must
be considered a further development of the argumentation marker is the use of
guarda in contexts such as the one of example 31, which is not found in the other
four languages. Not unlike a full-fledged pause filler such as ‘uh’ in English, it turns
up in the middle of a noun phrase, more precisely between the indefinite article
una and the noun pubblicazione. Waltereit (2002: 1001) rightly argues that, here,
“guarda conveys that the speaker is momentarily unsure as to how to continue [his
or] her current turn, without, however, abandoning [his or] her right to speak.”
(31) Ma io no _ non mi piace però no _ no no preferirei fare una guarda
pubblicazione pura delle lettere. (Waltereit, 2002: 993)
“But I no _ I don’t like it but no _ no no I’d prefer to make a look pure
publication of the letters.”

Note the difference with the manner in which kijk functions in example 23: it
also fills a possible gap but it always occupies the initial position in the clause that
follows (which may have needed some rephrasing for that reason). This use is
shared by all languages and is probably best seen as an argumentation marker of
which the floor-keeping potential is fully exploited. The use in example 31 might
be thought of as an extension of the use in 23. The ability to fill pauses, which is
236 Daniël Van Olmen

attributable to the prospective orientation of the argumentation marker, has been

preserved but the need for reformulation is gone (and so is any sense of speaker
commitment to what comes next).
The comparison of the five languages also shows that there is considerable
variation in the pragmatic uses that occur in utterance-final position or make up
a whole turn on their own. Neither English nor French has a wide range of such
uses. The only one that Dostie (2004: 117) mentions for regarde is described as fol-
lows: “Reacting to something that has just been said or has just occurred, I [speak-
er] invite you [addressee] to consider it, because it nicely illustrates that a certain
idea that I think is true –as you know– is really true.” The dialogues in examples
32 and 33 may serve as illustrations. The closest English and Dutch equivalents of
regarde as what may be called a marker of supposed complicity are ‘you see’ and
zie je wel (‘you see’).
(32) [C says something. B hears it and says to A:] Regarde! (Dostie 2004: 117)
(33) A C’est une bonne idée, ça.
“That’s a good idea.”
B J’ai toujours pensé que j’avais de bonnes idées. On ne me fait pas assez
confiance, c’est tout. Regarde …! C’est loin d’être bête ma suggestion.
(Dostie 2004: 117)
“I’ve always thought that I had good ideas. People do not have enough
faith in me, that’s all. Look …! It’s far from being stupid, my suggestion.”

The Spanish (Pons Bordería, 1998: 188–189) and Italian (Waltereit, 2002: 990–992)

imperatives of intentional visual perception can function as highlighters of the
clauses that they follow, like in example 34, and as so-called phatic markers, as in
35. In the former case, guarda can be argued to add force to the utterance and to
the speaker’s desire to stop the conversation. In the latter case, guarda is an expres-
sion of the speaker’s appreciation of what A is proposing and, as such, it is very
similar to B’s previous reaction ah ah.
(34) A Eh no ma ho sbagliato ho sbagliato radio guarda.
“Huh no but I’ve made a mistake I’ve chosen the wrong radio station
look.”
B Ha sbagliato radio che voleva chiamara la Raffai. (Waltereit, 2002: 990)
“She’s chosen the wrong radio station she wanted to call Raffai.”
(35) A Proporrei l’antipastino di mare bellino.
“I’d recommend the seafood starter dear.”
B Ah _ ah.
“Ah _ ah.”
A Con cozze … eh eccetera eccetera.
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 237

“With mussels … huh and so on and so forth.”

B Guarda. (Waltereit, 2002: 992)
“Look.”

The use in example 34 is not shared by Dutch kijk but the one in 35 bears a strik-
ing resemblance to the expressive directive in example 12 and the backchanneling
device in 27. The expressive directive conveys the speaker’s stance toward some
special piece of visually accessible information. The use in example 35 is also a
clear marker of speaker attitude but relates to what A is saying about a dish (which
may become visually accessible to B) rather than to a visible component of the
speech event at the time of speaking. Moreover, it is part of a series of reactions the
subjective character of which signals that B is pleased with the suggestion and thus
that A should continue. The backchanneling device, finally, is not a strong expres-
sion of speaker stance. There is only a general sense of agreement with or interest
in the interlocutor’s speech. Like guarda in example 35, it is an indication that he
or she is being listened to and may carry on.
Interestingly, in Waltereit’s (2002: 1000–1002) analysis of the connections be-
tween the various uses of guarda and its role as an interruption device, the use in
example 34 is the only one that is not taken up again and the characterization of
the use in 35 is limited to the remark that it “seems to draw upon the highlighting
side-effect of the imperative” (Waltereit, 2002: 1002). This treatment of the uses in
examples 34 and 35 is not so unsurprising, as they differ from the interruptive and
floor-keeping directive to look as well as from the argumentation marker and its
related uses in at least one very important respect. The latter have a prospective ori-
entation, i.e. they point to new or renewed information and are expected to be fol-
lowed by other linguistic material. In contrast, guarda in examples 34 and 35 and,
in actual fact, all uses discussed in the preceding paragraph are retrospective: they
pertain to information that the interlocutors share and they do not have to be fol-
lowed by anything. Because of this rather fundamental distinction, it is hard to re-
gard these uses as (side-)products of the narrow or broad scenario described above.
A more likely source is the directive to look at something that is already visible
to everyone. In a case such as oh hier is er nog meer hè kijk (“oh there’s even more
here isn’t there look”) in example 9, the directive draws A’s attention to an element
(of a picture) that the speaker has actually just pointed out to her (note, in this re-
spect, the location adverb hier and the attention particle hè). The main function of
this imperative of intentional visual perception seems to be to stress and strength-
en the preceding reference to the picture. It is exactly this pragmatic effect that is
exploited in uses like the one in example 34. Of course, the directive to look can
also be used as a reaction to visual data that the interlocutors share. From a strictly
informational perspective, the directive is probably not really required in such a
238 Daniël Van Olmen

directive to
look

prospective directive to retrospective

directive to look consider directive to look

argumentation expressive marker of supposed

marker directive complicity

hesitation quotation- phatic utterance-final

phenomenon initial marker marker expressive

pause filler backchanneling clause-final

device strengthener

Figure 2.  The development of the imperative of intentional visual perception.

case, as it highlights something that they have already seen. As a result, it is (to
be) understood as more than just an appeal to an addressee to look at something.
The imperative may, for instance, signal the speaker’s surprise and appreciation or
the particular relevance of a certain piece of visually accessible information to an
argument. The expressive directives in examples 11 and 12 are good (formulaic)
examples of such an imperative. These reactions to given visual information are
clear markers of speaker attitude. The effects of this (not necessarily formulaic)
type of imperative are preserved in the utterance-final expressive in example 26, in
the backchanneling device in 27, in the marker of supposed complicity in 32 and
33 and in the phatic marker in 35.
Figure 2 is a summary of the development of the imperative of intentional
visual perception as discussed in this section. Two comments are in order here.
First, the dashed line between ‘directive to consider’ and ‘argumentation marker’
stands for the debatable link between both uses. Second, the picture of the retro-
spective pragmatic uses is so diverse in the languages under discussion that it is
simply not possible to establish further links between them. As a result, they are all
represented as ‘daughters’ of the retrospective directive to look.

4. Grammaticalization

In the last decade or so, the use of the imperative of intentional visual perception
as a pragmatic marker and an argumentation marker in particular has emerged as
an issue in the debate about which phenomena (do not) fall under the heading of
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 239

grammaticalization. The most explicit positions are taken by Brinton (2001: 190–

195) and Waltereit (2002: 1004–1007). Their analyses of, respectively, ‘look’ and
guarda in terms of the traditional criteria of grammaticalization are remarkably
alike and can easily be replicated for kijk, by way of illustration.
The criteria (or ‘parameters’) in 36 are from Lehmann (1995). The ones that
kijk, as an argumentation marker, (partly) meets are 36a, 36b and 36f.
(36) a. Attrition d. Condensation
b. Paradigmaticization e. Coalescence
c. Obligatorification f. Fixation

First, there may be no clear signs of phonological attrition or erosion (just yet) but
the lexical meaning of intentional visual perception is obviously no longer present
(i.e. semantic attrition or desemanticization). The pragmatic marker kijk is not an
appeal to the hearer(s) to look at something. Second, it belongs to a(n admittedly
loose) paradigm of items such as wacht (‘hang on’), wel (‘well’) and especially luis-
ter (‘listen’) that shape the discourse and the relation between the interlocutors.
Given that luister functions as an attention-getting device and an argumentation
marker too (cf. Van Olmen, 2010), the use of kijk can be said to constitute a genu-
ine paradigmatic choice of a certain pragmatic marker over an alternative. Third,
the position of kijk as an argumentation marker is quite fixed, more specifically at
the beginning of the clause (note that kijk displays greater syntactic freedom in its
other functions, as the utterance-final expressive in example 26 illustrates). The
list of criteria that do not apply is equally long, however: 36c, 36d and 36e. First,
from a conventional perspective on grammar, kijk must be regarded as optional.
The language system never forces speakers to use it (from the broader perspective
of discourse grammar, one could actually argue that kijk does meet the criterion of
obligatorification since it is almost unavoidable in the context of what can rough-
ly be called linguistic attention-getting). Second, the scope of kijk has increased
rather than decreased. As an argumentation marker, it relates to the whole speech
event: the speaker, the addressee, their relation and the discourse. Third, kijk re-
mains morphologically independent.
In Traugott’s work on grammaticalization (e.g. Traugott and Dasher, 2002;
Hopper and Traugott, 2003; Brinton and Traugott, 2005), a number of additional
characteristics are mentioned. They are given in 37. Note also that she takes issue
with the criteria 36d and 36f. In her view, grammaticalization does not involve
scope reduction and may result in greater syntactic freedom (cf. Brinton and Trau-
gott, 2005: 138).
(37) a. Decategorialization c. Pragmatic strengthening
b. Divergence d. Subjectification
240 Daniël Van Olmen

Kijk exhibits all four characteristics in 37. First, its decategorialization is clear from
the fact that, unlike its lexical use as a directive to look, its pragmatic use as a
particle-like argumentation marker is not compatible with a prepositional object.
Second, the analysis in Section 2.2 shows that these two uses exist side-by-side.
Third, in the scenario in Section 3, the rise of the argumentation marker involves
the conventionalization of the conversational implicature that what the speaker is
going to say is important.11 Fourth, kijk is also more subjective as an argumenta-
tion marker than as a directive to look. It conveys “SP/W [i.e. speaker and writer]
attitude to what is said … [and] to the discourse structure” (Traugott and Dasher,
2002: 23): it signals the speaker’s commitment to what follows as well as the intro-
duction of a (re)new(ed) (sub)topic that is typically at odds with what precedes
(it should be clear from Section 2.2 that the other (retrospective) uses of kijk are
subjective too).12
What is interesting is that, despite their (sometimes implicit) agreement on
most of the aforementioned points, Brinton (2001) and Waltereit (2002) come to
very different conclusions. Brinton (2001: 192–193), on the one hand, maintains
that “pragmatic markers are best seen as deriving from a process of grammatica-
lization … [and that] forms of ‘look’ would seem to be no exception.” Waltereit
(2002: 1005), on the other hand, concludes that “the rise of DMs cannot count as
grammaticalization.” The discrepancy points to the huge role that ideology plays
in the debate. Linguists like Brinton (2001) believe that markers such as ‘look’, ‘in-
deed’ and ‘I suppose’ belong to the grammar of a language and, accordingly, that
they have undergone a process of grammaticalization. The adherents of this view
are therefore prepared to overlook the criteria in 36 and 37 that are not fulfilled
and, as such, the differences with much more typical cases like the development
of modal verbs. According to linguists like Waltereit (2002: 1004), on the other
hand, “it is not even immediately obvious that DMs are part of the grammar of a
language in the first place.” This conviction is one of the main reasons why they are
such strict enforcers of the Lehmannian parameters in 36.
Both views are untenable, though. The exclusionists’ concept of grammar
is probably too narrow and, above all, too discrete. On the functional side, it is
clear that the non-truth-conditional meanings associated with pragmatic markers
also play an important part in ‘prototypical grammar’ (cf. Brinton and Traugott,
2005: 139). The notions of topic and focus, for instance, are fundamental to the
description of ‘look’ and kijk as well as to that of syntactic alternations such as
passivization or the dative shift. On the formal side, the traditional criterion of
an item’s integration in the structure of the clause is not so clear-cut. Sentential
adverbs such as ‘personally’ and ‘honestly’, for one, are usually considered as gram-
matical items but occupy a rather fixed, clause-initial and syntagmatically isolated
slot that is similar to that of ‘look’. In contrast, inclusionists run the risk of being
 The imperative of intentional visual perception 241

oblivious to the peculiarities of pragmatic markers and their evolution. It is obvi-

ous that they function at another level of meaning than, for example, prepositions
or conjunctions. Likewise, as Waltereit (2002: 1006) rightly points out, they typi-
cally derive from structures that make up a syntactic whole while the source struc-
tures of prepositions and conjunctions tend to take some type of complement.
In light of the above, it does not seem very useful to answer the question
whether the development of pragmatic markers out of imperatives of intentional
visual perception is an instance of grammaticalization or not. A more interesting
and more global approach, which is beyond the scope of this article, would be to
map and explain the ways in which this development and, for instance, the usual
examples of grammaticalization as well as the evolution of pragmatic items such
as the modal particles in Dutch are similar and/or different as far as the criteria in
36 and 37 are concerned.

5. Summary

Kijk has been shown to be more typically pragmatic, more frequent and also less
restricted to (private) dialogue than ‘look’. The uses that the imperatives share are:
directive to look, expressive directive, directive to consider, argumentation marker
and a type of hesitation phenomenon. In addition, ‘look’ can function as a quo-
tation-initial marker whereas kijk can serve as an utterance-final expressive and a
backchanneling device. It has also been pointed out that the differences in usage
do not explain the difference in frequency.
On the basis of data from two Germanic and three Romance languages, it
has been argued that the use of the imperative of intentional visual perception as
an argumentation marker has its roots in the directive to look, not only in turn-
initial interruption contexts but also in turn-medial floor-keeping contexts. It has
also been argued that its use as a quotation-initial marker and its use as a pause
filler are extensions of its use as an argumentation marker. The uses that occur
in utterance-final position or that are complete turns have been linked not to the
argumentation marker, because of a difference in orientation, but to the directive
to look in retrospective contexts.
Finally, it has been argued — with reference to Brinton’s (2001) analysis of
‘look’ and Waltereit’s (2002) analysis of guarda — that the debate about which
phenomena count as grammaticalization is, basically, ideological. As such, it is not
very informative about the use and the rise of the imperative of intentional visual
perception as a pragmatic marker.
242 Daniël Van Olmen

Notes

*  The author is a PhD Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). This article expands
on a paper presented at the 4th New Reflections on Grammaticalization conference in Leuven
in July 2008 and on Van Olmen (2010). Thanks are due to Laurel Brinton, Maria Josep Cuenca,
Barbara Dancygier, Bernard De Clerck, Liesbeth Degand, Gaétane Dostie, Ad Foolen, Torsten
Leuschner, Johan van der Auwera, Richard Waltereit, the two anonymous referees, the editors of
Languages in Contrast, the editors of the present issue and the project P6/44 on Grammatical-
ization and (Inter)Subjectification funded by the Belgian Federal Government.

1.  Unless indicated otherwise, the English examples are from the International Corpus of Brit-
ish English (ICE-GB; Survey of English Usage, 2006) and the Dutch ones (translated by the
author of the present article) from the Spoken Dutch Corpus (CGN; Dutch Language Union,
2004).

2.  The corpus is made up of the spoken part of the ICE-GB and of a selection of the parsed
files of the Northern Dutch part of the CGN that is in line with the design of the International
Corpus of English. Cf. Van Olmen (2009: 408–409) for more information.

3.  This analysis is based on the data in Table 1, on De Vriendt (1995) and De Clerck (2006)
and on extra examples from Google and the British National Corpus (BNC Consortium, 2007).

4.  A quick look at the first hundred Google hits of the string “said look” on .uk websites and
of the strings zei(den) kijk (“said look”) on .nl websites reveals that half of the English ones are
like example 24, while only one tenth of the Dutch ones resemble example 25, and most of them
function as genuine argumentation markers.

5.  One of the referees is right in pointing out that kijk plus the mitigator eens sounds very natu-
ral as a backchanneling device.

6.  The diminutive -ke in tafelke, the lexical item kopke and the second person pronoun de sug-
gest that A is a speaker of Southern Dutch. She is, however, from the Dutch province of North
Brabant, which borders Belgium.

7.  For the sake of clarity: the distinction between ‘look’ and kijk in reported speech is captured
by the partial inclusion of the leftmost label and the subscripted numbers refer to the examples
in Section 2.1.

8.  What is also important for the recruitment of imperatives like ‘look’ as argumentation mark-
ers and what is not explicitly discussed in Waltereit (2002) is the special nature of visual percep-
tion. Cf. Van Olmen (2010) for an application of Sweetser’s (1993: 23–48) analysis of the cultural
and metaphorical aspects of the semantic structure of perception verbs to the development of
pragmatic markers and for a comparison between ‘look’ and kijk, on the one hand, and their
auditory counterparts ‘listen’ and luister, on the other.

9.  The quotations from Dostie (2004) are translations from French by the author of the present
article.

10.  This has been pointed out to us by one of the referees.

 The imperative of intentional visual perception 243

11.  As Brinton (2001: 193) points out, this rise is also accompanied by the conventionalization of
the inference “what is visible must be believed”, which the directive to look at something invites.
Cf. Van Olmen (2010) for a detailed discussion.

12.  Kijk, as an argumentation marker, also has an interpersonal or intersubjective value: just like
‘look’ (De Clerck, 2006: 462), it invites “the addressee to take into account an additional point
of view.” Another use of kijk that is unmistakably intersubjective is the backchanneling device:
it is a very straightforward marker of “SP/W attention to AD/R [i.e. addressee and reader]”
(Traugott and Dasher, 2002: 23).

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Author’s address
Daniël Van Olmen
Center for Grammar, Cognition and Typology
University of Antwerp
City Campus, R Building
14 Rodestraat
2000 Antwerp
Belgium
daniel.vanolmen@ua.ac.be