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Volume 46, Issue 2
  • ISSN 0378-4177
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9978
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Abstract

Abstract

Truth markers commonly evolve into intensifiers (Heine & Kuteva 2002), 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 2002). We provide a diachronic analysis for Hebrew ‘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).

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2021-06-08
2024-10-13

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The missing link between truth and intensification
Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” 46, 285 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20076.bar
/content/journals/10.1075/sl.20076.bar
/content/journals/10.1075/sl.20076.bar
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): counter-loosening; intensifiers; loosening; Paradis’ principle of harmony; semantic change; truth attesters

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