The rise of what-general extenders in English

General extenders (ges) are elements such as and so forth occurring at the right periphery. On the referential level, they implicate a set, but they also serve a range of discourse-pragmatic functions, such as hedging and interpersonal relations. Some sociolinguistic studies have seen the development of ges as synchronic grammaticalization involving phonetic reduction, decategorialization, semantic bleaching and pragmatic enrichment, but other studies have found no evidence of ongoing grammaticalization. Historical studies of ges are few. This paper sets out to fill this gap by studying the rise of disjunctive, adjunctive and bare ges formed with what – (or/and) what you will, or what, or/and what else, (or) whatever, (or/and) what not and (or/and) what have you. Despite their apparent similarity, these are shown to have quite different sources and histories. Their development conforms to some of the recognized parameters of grammaticalization but is more fruitfully understood from a constructionist approach.