Lobke Ghesquière

From determining to emphasizing meanings: The adjectives of specificity

In the recent literature (Adamson, A lovely little example: Word order options and category shift in the premodifying string, John Benjamins, 2000; Paradis, Reinforcing adjectives: A cognitive semantic perspective on grammaticalisation, Mouton de Gruyter, 2000; Athanasiadou, Language Sciences 29: 554–565, 2007; Traugott, Journal of Historical Pragmatics 8: 295–309, 2007a, Cognitive Linguistics 18: 523–557, 2007b), the development of ‘emphasizing’ meanings by prenominal elements of the English NP is generally envisaged along a path leading from descriptive, propositional meaning to emphasizing meaning (e.g. from a complete sentence to complete nonsense; cf. Paradis, Reinforcing adjectives: A cognitive semantic perspective on grammaticalisation, Mouton de Gruyter, 2000: 245). However, earlier Bolinger (Degree words, Mouton, 1972: 59, 60) had posited an alternative path for elements that also express determining meanings, i.e. from determining to emphasizing meaning (e.g. from the complete period to a complete fool). This paper will assess these opposed claims about the origin of emphasizing uses by means of a data-based study of the development of two adjectives, particular and specific, that have descriptive, determining, as well as emphasizing uses. Reconstruction of the various meaning extensions and structural reanalyses that have affected the adjectives indicates that the now mostly neglected determining uses are an essential step in the subjectification process to emphasizing meanings and they can shed new light on both the chronology and the conceptual mechanisms involved in the syntactic-semantic shifts.

A corpus-based account of the development of English such and Dutch zulk: identification, intensification and (inter)subjectification

Abstract On the basis of synchronic English language material, Bolinger (Degree Words, Mouton, 1972) has put forward the hypothesis that intensifying meanings or “degree words” often develop from identifying expressions. This paper will empirically test Bolingers hypothesis by means of in-depth diachronic study of the development of such—one of Bolingers central examples—and of its Dutch cognate zulk in historical text corpora. To this aim, a detailed cognitive-functional account will first be provided of the (differences between the) identifying and intensifying uses of such and zulk, with attention for diachronic changes affecting the syntax and semantics of these uses, cross-linguistically as well as language-specifically. It will be shown that, as predicted by Bolinger (Degree Words, Mouton, 1972), the proportion of identifying uses decreases over time in favor of the intensifying uses both in English and Dutch. The comparison between such and zulk will, however, show that, despite the close relation between these two languages, the development does not run strictly parallel in English and Dutch, thus endorsing a view that language change does not necessarily follow predetermined pathways. We will argue that minute differences in the syntax of such and zulk steer the diachronic course these elements follow. Finally, Bolingers shift from identification to intensification will be discussed in terms of its relation to existing (inter)subjectification hypotheses.

The development of intensification scales in noun-intensifying uses of adjectives: sources, paths and mechanisms of change

This article is concerned with the sources, paths and mechanisms of change leading to noun-intensifying uses of adjectives, such as a complete mess, a whole bunch of crazy stuff, a particular threat. Such intensifying uses may develop from property-describing uses of adjectives, as discussed by Traugott (1989), Adamson (2000) and Paradis (2000, 2001, 2008). As pointed out by Bolinger (1972: 61), noun-intensifying uses may also develop from elements of the NP that have identifying functions, which can be either quantifying-identifying or identifying in the strict sense. The aim of this article is to provide a new synthesis of how these three pathways lead towards noun-intensifying meanings, focusing on the question of how the intensification scales necessary to these uses are acquired. We posit that the concepts of open and closed intensification scales (Kennedy & McNally 2005) can generalize over the intensifying uses from the three sources. The main mechanism of change is the foregrounding of the gradability mode (Paradis 2000), quantification scale or other implied scale of the immediate source uses. The initial shift takes place in collocational environments that overlap with those of the source uses. Due to later collocational extension, noun-intensifying uses may come to incorporate intensification scales unpredicted by their sources.

Subjective Compounds and Subjectivity/Subjectification in the English Noun Phrase

This paper makes a case for the category of subjective compounds, that is adjective-noun word units which convey subjective meaning, for example little bleeder, old chum, half-victory . These compounds are characterized grammatically by their behaviour as a unit in phrase structure, their internal inseparability and the non-attribute-like behaviour of the adjectival components. Adjective and noun have a high degree of collocational cohesion, which is reflected in high mutual information scores. This collocational cohesion is semantically motivated by the subjective evaluative features which adjective and noun share. To accommodate these subjective compounds we propose a prosodic, field-like model of the English noun phrase (NP), rather than a linear subjective-objective model as traditionally recognized in the literature. A prosodic model, which recognizes that subjective meaning is spread over the whole NP, can account both for the strong tendency of more subjective modifiers to precede more objective ones and for the minor countercurrent of more subjective elements to follow more objective ones. Such a model, we argue, also captures the fact that subjectification can entail both leftward and rightward movement in NP structure.

Aspects of grammaticalization:(inter)subjectification and directionality

This paper discusses the three extant concepts of subjectivity and of intersubjectivity in linguistics. It points out their commonalities and the substantial differences between them, which are often overlooked. Furthermore, a synthesis between these concepts is proposed, and then the dynamic (diachronic) dimension of the synthesized concept in terms of increase in speech-act orientation. The paper ends with a short discussion of the relationship between increase in speech-act orientation and grammaticalization.

Content-purport, content-substance and structure: focusing mere and merely

Abstract Starting from Hjelmslev’s distinction between content-purport and content-substance, we investigate the meaning of focus markers mere and merely from a diachronic perspective. We argue that their shared ability to convey the four focus types (exclusive-categorial, exclusive-scalar, particularizing, inclusive) can be viewed as their shared content-purport. We approach their content-substance, i.e. the meanings coded by their structures, in terms of the interpersonal modification structures of McGregor’s Semiotic Grammar. The different syntagmatic combinations are associated with different contextual usage types.