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Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 46:2 (2022) ► pp.285–322

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The missing link between truth and intensification

 | Shenkar College
 | Tel Aviv University
Published online: 8 June 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20076.bar
Abstract
Truth markers commonly evolve into intensifiers (Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), but we here argue that this shift is only indirect, and a counter-loosening phase necessarily mediates between truth marking and intensification. Counter-looseners instruct the addressee to avoid (or rather, constrain) the very natural interpretative process of broadening, whereby the speaker-intended concept would have been taken as a loosened, “more or less” interpretation of the meaning of the modified expression (Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and utterances: The pragmatics of explicit communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). We provide a diachronic analysis for Hebrew mamash ‘really’, which supports our point, and we reinterpret diachronic analyses of other truth markers in order to show that they too underwent a counter-loosening phase before turning intensifiers. Finally, we briefly distinguish between a counter-loosening mediated intensifier evolution (for truth markers, particularizers and maximizers) and a direct evolutionary path into intensification for originally upscaling expressions (extreme scalar modifiers and augmenters).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.‘Truth’ will ‘narrow’ before it ‘intensifies’
    • 2.1Problematizing the truth marker to intensifier evolution
    • 2.2Motivating explicit counter-loosening
    • 2.3Counter-loosening and scalarity
    • 2.4From ‘truth’ to ‘counter-loosening’ to ‘intensifying’
  • 3.The evolution of Hebrew mamash ‘real(ly)’
    • 3.1Phase I: Mamash turns into a truth marker
    • 3.2Phase II: From truth marking to ‘counter-loosening’
    • 3.3Towards Phase III: Between ‘counter-loosening’ and intensification
  • 4.Finding the missing link for other truth-based intensifiers
    • 4.1A necessary counter-loosening phase for truth markers
    • 4.2A general mechanism of counter-loosening to intensification
    • 4.3Direct versus indirect paths to intensification
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (54)
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