Abstract
This paper develops a theory whereby the type of intensifier that a source word grammaticalizes as is determined by the semantics of the source word. Three intensifiers (way, thoroughly, and overly) are looked at in-depth and it is shown that their semantics as intensifiers follow from certain features, namely path and endpoint, of the image schemas depicting the meanings of their source words. It is possible that this theory can be extended to all intensifiers, especially given that many intensifiers grammaticalize out of source words that have spatial interpretations.
Highlights
Reference grammars of English (Quirk et al 1985, Huddleston & Pullum 2002) have categorized intensifiers according to the semantic function they serve, and more than a century of research on intensifiers in English (e.g. Stoffel 1901, Kirchner 1955, Partington 1993, Lorenz 2002, Ito & Tagliamonte 2003, Claudi 2006, Macaulay 2006, Mendez-Naya 2008, Gonzalez-Diaz 2008) has established that intensifiers grammaticalize out of adjectives and adverbs
Often bolstered by the availability of large searchable electronic corpora, has established the exact course of semantic change taken by individual source words as they grammaticalized as intensifiers
What is missing is a general theory of intensifiers that can explain why a given source word grammaticalizes as one type of intensifier rather another
Summary
Reference grammars of English (Quirk et al 1985, Huddleston & Pullum 2002) have categorized intensifiers according to the semantic function they serve, and more than a century of research on intensifiers in English (e.g. Stoffel 1901, Kirchner 1955, Partington 1993, Lorenz 2002, Ito & Tagliamonte 2003, Claudi 2006, Macaulay 2006, Mendez-Naya 2008, Gonzalez-Diaz 2008) has established that intensifiers grammaticalize out of adjectives and adverbs. I claim that the semantics of source words, which I depict using image schemas, determine the type of intensifier those source words grammaticalize as. This theory necessarily assumes that the concepts of space and degree are closely related, an assumption that finds support in cognitive science and typological literature. Quirk et al (1985) refer to all degree adverbs as intensifiers, which can be divided into Amplifiers (intensifiers that scale upwards) and Downtoners (intensifiers that scale downwards) These two categories are further broken down; Boosters and Maximizers are types of Amplifiers, while Approximators, Compromisers, Diminishers, and Minimizers are types of Downtoners.
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