pre-nominal intensifiers

Letizia VEZZOSI vezzosi at UNIPG.IT
Tue Sep 19 09:48:42 UTC 2006


Germanic and Romance languages use a special word which one can call 
?attributive intensifier?: e.g. Italian proprio, French propre, Spanish 
propio, German Dutch Frisian eigen, Norvegian egen, and so on. These 
expressions share a common semantic source: they derive from a lexical 
stem expressing ?possession? and are formally distinct from adnominal 
intensifiers (cf. Italian stesso, Spanish mismo, French même, German 
selbst, English himself, Frisian sels, Dutch zelf, Swedish själf and so 
on).

We are curious to know how other languages encode the relevant meaning 
and translate the attributive intensifiers mentioned above: whether 
they use a different (or same) lexeme from (as) the adnominal 
intensifier or whether they deploy a completely different strategy in 
sentences such as the following:

     a. a poem from Shakespeare?s own pen

	b. I saw it with my own eyes.

	c. I would like to have a key of my own.


	d. John saw Bill leaving the cinema with his own wife. (whose wife was it?)
	d?. John saw Bill leaving the cinema with his wife. (Whose wife was it?)

	e. She makes her own dresses (but not those of her daughter)
	e?. She makes her own dresses (she never buy them)

f. After her own brief imprisonment she showed more sympathy with the 
victims of the             regime. (i.e. ?After she had been imprisoned 
herself??)

  	g.	He attacked his own views (Whose views are they?)
	g?.	He defended his (own) view


Thank you in advamce.

Letizia Vezzosi



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