Abstract
Dutchreuze(n)(-)has a wide range of synchronic uses that form part of a broad categorical and semantic continuum. Derived from the nounreus‘giant’, it is often used to express a comparison in nominal and adjectival compounds (for example,reuzegroot‘as big as a giant’, lit. ‘giant-big’), but it can also have a merely intensifying function (for example,reuzeleuk‘very nice’, lit. ‘giant-nice’). Moreover, it currently occurs as a free adjective and adverb while keeping its morphological linking morpheme-e-and intensifying value (for example,Het feestje was reuze‘The party was great’). Drawing on synchronic and diachronic corpus data, this paper argues that the emergence ofreuzeas a free morpheme should be accounted for by debonding (an instance of degrammaticalization) and clipping.*
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