Peeking into the socio-historical background and current use of ‘me (no)<i>likey</i>’

The verb to like has fallen repeatedly under the gaze of scholars. One aspect which stimulated vigorous discussion is its original use in impersonal constructions and later change argument structure along with disappearance impersonals from English. Nonetheless, evidence current informal English shows that now used bear a close resemblance older impersonals, although always displaying alternative spelling variants, especially likey . This paper seeks further our understanding , focusing specifically on these new constructions. To this end I will as generic label refer such uses constructions, regardless variations (unless otherwise stated). Using data Corpus Historical American iWeb study seek answer following research questions: RQ1. What are morpho-syntactic features expression ‘me (no) likey’ Present-Day English? RQ2. origin sequence likey’? RQ3. Where do phrasal patterns fall continuum idiomaticity (Michaelis, 2017)?