Cover not available
Part of
Exploring Intensification: Synchronic, diachronic and cross-linguistic perspectives
Edited by Maria Napoli and Miriam Ravetto
[Studies in Language Companion Series 189] 2017
► pp. 33–54

Chapter 2
Intensification and focusing

The case of pure(ly) and mere(ly)

| University of Mons

Intensification or degree modification by means of adverbs and adjectives has been the object of linguistic study for many years, yet there is still a need for clear delineation of this functional category. This study focuses on the differences and similarities between the functional domains of intensification and focusing. The latter function has mainly been described for adverbs, with little attention to its adjectival realizations and to its relation to intensification. By means of corpus studies of pure, purely, mere and merely, it is shown that intensification and focusing are similar to some extent, both engaging in interpersonal modification (McGregor 1997), yet also distinct with intensification being semantically scalar, attitudinal and inherently subjective and focusing being only potentially pragmatically scalar, rhetorical and textually intersubjective.

Keywords: intensification, focusing, scalarity, (inter)subjectivity, interpersonal modification, adjectives, adverbs
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Intensification and focusing: A preliminary demarcation
  • 3. Pure(ly) and mere(ly) : A case study of intensification and focusing
    • 3.1Descriptive modification
    • 3.2Intensification
    • 3.3Focusing
      • 3.3.1Exclusive focus
      • 3.3.2Particularizing focus
      • 3.3.3Inclusive focus
      • 3.3.4The development of focusing pure(ly) and mere(ly)
  • 4.Intensification vs. focusing
    • 4.1Scalarity
    • 4.2Subjectivity and intersubjectivity
    • 4.3Diachrony of intensification and focusing
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpora
Published online: 30 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.189.03ghe
References
Adamson, Sylvia
2000 A lovely little example: Word order options and category shift in the premodifying string. In Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English [Studies in Language Companion Series 53], Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein (eds), 39–66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Athanasiadou, Angeliki
2007 On the subjectivity of intensifiers. Language Sciences 29: 554–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
1967 Adjectives in English: Attribution and predication. Lingua 18: 1–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1972 Degree Words. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Breban, Tine & Davidse, Kristin
2016 The history of very: The directionality of functional-structural change and (inter)subjectification. English Language and Linguistics 20: 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlier, Anne & De Mulder, Walter
2010 The emergence of the definite article: ille in competition with ipse in Late Latin. In Subjectification, Intersubjectification, and Grammaticalization, Kristin Davidse, Lieven Vandelanotte & Hubert Cuyckens (eds), 241–275. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidse, Kristin & Ghesquière, Lobke
2016 Content-purport, content-substance and structure: Focusing mere and merely. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 48(1): 85–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diessel, Holger
2006 Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 17: 463–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eckardt, Regine
2012 The many careers of negative polarity items. In Grammaticalization and Language Change: New Reflections [Studies in Language Companion Series 130], Kristin Davidse, Tine Breban, Lieselotte Brems & Tanja Mortelmans (eds), 299–326. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gehweiler, Elke
2008 The grammaticalization of the German adjectives lauter (and eitel). In Grammaticalization: Current Views and Issues [Studies in Language Companion Series 119], Ekaterini Stathi, Elke Gehweiler & Ekkehard König (eds), 297–322. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2011 The Grammaticalization of Privative Adjectives: Present-day Uses and Diachronic Development. PhD dissertation, FU Berlin.Google Scholar
Ghesquière, Lobke
2014 The Directionality of (Inter)subjectification in the English Noun Phrase: Pathways of Change. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ghesquière, Lobke, Brems, Lieselotte & Van de Velde, Freek
2014 Intersubjectivity and intersubjectification: Typology and operationalization. In Intersubjectivity and Intersubjectification in Grammar and Discourse: Theoretical and Descriptive Advances [Benjamins Current Topics 65], Lieselotte Brems, Lobke Ghesquière & Freek Van de Velde (eds), 129–153. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Hischberg, Julia
1991 A Theory of Scalar Implicature. New York NY: Garland.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey
2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, Christopher & McNally, Louise
2005 Scalar structure, degree modification, and the semantics of gradable predicates. Language 81: 345–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard
1991 The Meaning of Focus Particles: A Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leisi, Elizabeth
1967[1961] Der Wortinhalt. Seine Struktur im Deutschen und Englischen, 3. Durchgesehene und erweiterte Auflage. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.Google Scholar
McGregor, William
1997 Semiotic Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Murray, James A.H., Brodly, Henry, Craigie, W. A. & Onions, C. T.
1993 The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu
1991 BUT, ONLY, JUST. Focusing Adverbial Change in Modern English 1500–1900. Helsinki: Société Neophilologique.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu & Rissanen, Matti
2002 Fairly pretty or pretty fair? On the development and grammaticalization of English downtoners. Language Sciences 24: 359–380. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paradis, Carita
1997 Degree Modifiers of Adjectives in Spoken British English. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
2000 Reinforcing Adjectives: A cognitive semantic perspective on grammaticalization. In Generative Theory and Corpus Studies: A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL, Ricardo Bermudez-Otero, David Denison, Richard M. Hogg & Chris B. Mccully (eds), 233–258. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Adjectives and boundedness. Cognitive Linguistics 12: 47–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Partington, Alan
1998 Patterns and Meanings. Using Corpora for English Language Research and Teaching [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 2]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peters, Hans
1994 Degree adverbs in Early Modern English. In Studies in Early Modern English, Dieter Kastovsky (ed.), 269–288. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan
1985 A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Stoffel, Cornelis
1901 Intensives and Down-toners: A Study in English Adverbs. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Tognini-Bonelli, Elena
1993 Interpretative nodes in discourse: Actual and actually . In Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, Mona Baker & Elena Tognini-Bonelli (eds), 193–212. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
1982 From propositional to textual and expressive meanings: Some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. In Perspectives on Historical Linguistics, Christian Lehmann & Yakov Malkiel (eds), 245–271. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 The Semantic Development of Scalar Focus Modifiers. In The Handbook of the History of English, Ans Van Kemenade & Bettelou Los (eds), 335–359. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tribushinina, Elena
2008 Cognitive Reference Points: Semantics beyond the Prototypes in Adjectives of Space and Colour. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Vandewinkel, Sigi & Davidse, Kristin
2008 The interlocking paths of development to emphasizer adjective pure . Journal of Historical Pragmatics 9: 255–287. DOI logoGoogle Scholar

Corpora

PPCME2 = Kroch, Anthony & Taylor, Ann 2000 Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition. [URL]
PPCEME = Kroch, Anthony, Santorini, Beatrice & Delfs, Lauren 2004 Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English. [URL]
CLMET3.0 = The Corpus of Late Modern English Texts, version 3.0. Diller, Hans-Jürgen, De Smet, Hendrik & Tyrkko, Jukka 2011 A European database of descriptors of English electronic texts. The European English Messenger 19: 21–35.Google Scholar
WB Wordbanks Online corpus. [URL]
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Bardenstein, Ruti & Mira Ariel
2022. The missing link between truth and intensification. Studies in Language 46:2 ► pp. 285 ff. DOI logo
Blanco-Suárez, Zeltia
2020. Mortal hurryandmortal fine: on the rise of intensifyingmortal. Studia Neophilologica 92:3 ► pp. 271 ff. DOI logo
Ghesquière, Lobke
2021. “A Good Deal of Intensity”: On the Development of Degree and Quantity Modifier Good. Journal of English Linguistics 49:2 ► pp. 159 ff. DOI logo
KALTENBÖCK, GUNTHER & ELNORA TEN WOLDE
2022. A Just So Story: on the recent emergence of the purpose subordinator just so. English Language and Linguistics 26:4 ► pp. 889 ff. DOI logo
Lau, Seng-hian
2021. Negator turned intersubjective speech-act adverbial. Concentric. Studies in Linguistics 47:1 ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo
Ten Wolde, Elnora
2018. Premodification in evaluative of-binominal noun phrases. In Recent Developments in Functional Discourse Grammar [Studies in Language Companion Series, 205], ► pp. 170 ff. DOI logo
Wolde, Elnora ten & Thomas Schwaiger
2022. Modification as a linguistic ‘relationship’: A just so problem in Functional Discourse Grammar. Open Linguistics 8:1 ► pp. 699 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 march 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.