The Pronoun Tag Construction in British English

Tags are widely acknowledged as an important feature of spoken British English. Of the different types of tags, the most well-studied is the question tag, in which a verb and a subject pronoun are added to a clause that could otherwise stand alone: "He’s a fool, isn’t he?" A tag type that has received far less attention in the literature to date is the pronoun tag or ProTag. A ProTag is a lone pronoun appended to a clause: "He’s a fool, him". In this talk, I explore the grammatical features of this construction in British English and consider why a pronoun tag is ever used given that its presence is totally optional and serves no clarificatory purpose.

[NB la conférence se fera en anglais].