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Linguistic Variation: Online-First Articles

Degree modification across categories in Afrikaans

Robyn Berghoff | Stellenbosch University

Rick Nouwen | Utrecht University

Lisa Bylinina | Leiden University

Yaron McNabb | Utrecht University

The paper presents an analysis of the Afrikaans degree modifier baie ‘very/much/many’. Baie appears to be a single lexical item with a wide distribution in terms of the categories of gradable predicate with which it can combine. However, the paper shows that two syntactically distinct instances of baie should be distinguished. These instances of baie portion out the modification of different grammatical categories between them: one, a head, exclusively modifies gradable adjectives, and the other, an adjunct, modifies the remaining categories of gradable predicate.

Keywords: gradability, Afrikaans, degree modification

Published online: 15 July 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.17004.ber

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