The semantics and probabilistic pragmatics of deadjectival intensifiers
Main Article Content
Abstract
Intensifiers (e.g. horribly in horribly warm) are usually deadjectival adverbs. I show that the lexical content of the adjectival base, and in particular its evaluative meaning, is directly relevant for the degree intensifying function of these adverbs. In particular, I highlight two generalisations that have remained unaccounted for so far. First, evaluative adjectives with a negative evaluative meaning tend to turn into deadjectival intensifiers expressing high degree, while adjectives with a positive meaning make intensifiers of medium degree. Second, negative modal adjectives can form deadjectival intensifiers, but positive ones cannot. I will argue that a relatively simple intersective semantics for evaluative and modal adverbs accounts for these observations, but that we can only show this if we supplement that semantic analysis with a probabilistic pragmatic component.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Articles appearing in Semantics and Pragmatics are published under an author agreement with the Linguistic Society of America and are made available to readers under a Creative Commons Attribution License.