ed by all these freestanding maximizers, which are the functions of confirming response and approving response. Similarly, the functions of enhancing confirmation or negation and back-channeling are also performed by most freestanding maximizers, except for extremely and entirely. Moreover, other functions exhibit a tendency to be concentratedly assumed by absolutely, such as the functions of ironic response, mitigating disagreement, and ending a turn or a topic. Hence, in terms of the unidirectional tendencies of semantic change, the development of freestanding maximizers is presented from responses to discourse markers.
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