The colloquial discourse particle ‘like’ has attracted some attention in the pragmatics and semantics literature. This particle is of interest to linguists because of its varied usage and properties. Past analyses have treated it as a hedge, approximator, and focus particle. Good empirical evidence and analysis exists for its hedging functions, but the proposals related to focus have not been so well developed. If it indeed has focus marking properties, it is not clear what kind of focus is involved, or how that can be reconciled with its hedging functions. For this presentation, two small sets of conversational data are examined, showing that it shows both hedging and focusing functions. This talk will sketch out a possible hypothesis that could explain its focusing functions, and how that might be reconcilable with its hedging functions. Such a hypothesis indicates that it has interesting pragmatic properties that deserve further research.
