L’intensification dans les expressions figées françaises à coordination interne

An analysis of all the French expressions presenting a coordination reveals the conditions necessary to convey intensification values. The connector et (and) needs to have an additive value (or the connected value of precision or overbid) to trigger off intensification. This happens when it is combined with coordinated elements that have certain semantic connections with either addition or duplication : synonymy, total or partial referential convergence. Two degrees of intensification can be found : a relative degree (really, vraiment) when re-definition is at stake, and a high degree in the two other cases.