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Unorganized thoughtsnippet #8524:
... The proposal that English is developing an explicit vocative case marker, "@" (??????????.tumblr.com, 2018) has further possible implications beyond just the existance of a vocative marker: Looking at datapoints such as "@ me next time." and "What does it mean to @ god?", we can see @ being used as a Verb, as well.
While there is an alternate analysis that this developed alongside the vocative marker, I would like to propose here, instead, that this is a case of verbing of a particle. If so, this leads to questions about the extent of verbing in English, and to what extent that is specific to English or a cross-linguistic phenomenon.
I will argue from a historical and from a grammatical perspective ...
Further thoughts:
- This is an especially interesting case because we can get data from multiple languages on the same context because it's all happening globally -- even if we argue that the influence of English is overpowering, Weibo still gives us the same but disconnected context for Mandarin.
- Also you can cite Calvin And Hobbes about verbing.
- Similar particle-detivations: "outing" someone probably derives first from the Adj., but "an inn" from "in"?
Oh my GOD I totally didn't even think of using "Don't @ me" as a datapoint instead, WOW I am so not a Twitter native.