Chapter published in:
Exploring Intensification: Synchronic, diachronic and cross-linguistic perspectives
Edited by Maria Napoli and Miriam Ravetto
[Studies in Language Companion Series 189] 2017
► pp. 15–32

The comparative basis of intensification

| Freie Universität Berlin | Universität Freiburg
This paper argues that the ubiquitous cognitive process of comparing and the resultant judgements of similarity and dissimilarity also underlie the semantic processes of intensification and grading to a large extent. This comparative basis is visible both in the formal properties of many intensifiers and in central aspects of their semantics: Intensifiers may overtly encode a comparison (e.g. crystal clear, royally, outstanding) and an emotional reaction to a comparison (surprisingly, frightfully), or they may imply a comparison with a covert standard in endocentric expansions of simple adjectival predications. In order to gain a new perspective on their meaning, the relations between intensifiers, on the one hand, and demonstratives, exclamatives and comparative constructions, on the other, are analyzed and a semantic typology of comparative constructions is outlined and discussed in relation to the central hypothesis.
Keywords: intensifiers, comparison, demonstratives, exclamatives, semantic typology
Published online: 30 September 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.189.02kon
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