allthingslinguistic:An interesting thread about the discursive function of “waslike”. Technically sp
allthingslinguistic:An interesting thread about the discursive function of “waslike”. Technically speaking, I wouldn’t say that this construction is really a compound verb “waslike”, because it still conjugates like you’d normally conjugate the verb “to be”. (I’m like, you’re like, s/he’s like; I was like, you were like, s/he was like - not I waslike, you waslike, s/he waslikes.)The linguistic term for it is quotative “like” and there have been several academic papers about it, including this early one from 1990 and this extensive survey of functions of “like” by Alexandra D’Arcy. -- source link