The syntactic marking of emotional intensity: Psycholinguistic evidence from French

Abstract

This behavioral study investigates the interplay between emotional intensity and syntactic linearization in French, i.e., the projection of mental syntax onto the speech flow. Four marked syntactic constructions introduced by a focus of attention at the beginning of a clause were selected: (i) sentences introduced by a discourse marker; (ii) cleft sentences; (iii) adjective-noun verbless sentences; (iv) sentences introduced by a perceptual verb. Eighty sentences were presented visually to 44 adult native speakers of French for an assessment of emotional intensity. Half had a negative valence, half had a positive valence. For each valence, half of the sentences were syntactically marked and half were their unmarked counterpart. Rating data on a 9-point Likert scale for the emotional intensity conveyed by the speaker’s sentences indicated that negative sentences were judged more intense than positive sentences. An effect of markedness was also observed, showing that marked sentences were assessed as more intense than unmarked sentences. Finally, a variation in the perception of intensity according to the type of construction was found. Overall, the present findings represent an important step in the development of affective linguistics at the level of the syntax/pragmatics interface.