"I cannot emphasize"

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:46 AM -0700 4/23/10, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>On Apr 23, 2010, at 7:12 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
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>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>Subject:      "I cannot emphasize"
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>What category does this fit into?  Written about e-Bay.
>
>>I cannot emphasize how important it is to check on shipping costs,
>>which can vary wildly.
>
>it looks like a (venial) type of undernegation, with the negative
>polarity element "too much" suppressed, presumably because it can be
>supplied by the cooperative reader/hearer, perhaps on the grounds that
>the high-end-of-scale understanding is already provided by "how Adj"
>'very Adj' and doesn't need further expression in "too much".  no
>doubt larry horn can comment.

I was thinking "cannot overemphasize" might be another source, but I
see from googling that "cannot stress how" is also incredibly common,
and "overstress" is much rarer than "overemphasize", so I agree that
it's more likely a matter of incorporating an "enough" or "too much"
into the verb itself in these contexts.  Maybe the speaker thinks
that to say one "can't emphasize enough/too much how [+ high scalar
adj]" is emphasizing it too much, so the reanalysis to "can't
emphasize how [+ high scalar adj]" is emphasizing it enough.

LH

>
>certainly "I cannot emphasize how" is incredibly common.  a very few
>examples from among many:
>
>   Rest and Eat Well. I cannot emphasize how important this is. I had
>to learn the hard way.
>   http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090225213116AAvL5jR
>
>   I cannot emphasize how fantastic the pizza is at Al Forno, and what
>a tragedy it will be if you leave this place without having tried it.
>   http://www.yelp.com/biz/al-forno-restaurant-providence
>
>   Your research is one of the most important parts of your project.
>It is the basis for what you will be presenting to the judges. I
>cannot emphasize how important understanding the correct background
>information is.
>   http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/top_science-
>fair_success.shtml
>
>fair number of examples on GB.  but all the examples that come easily
>to hand strike me as informal in tone.  though probably an industrious
>ADS-Ler can find more elevated or "serious" examples.  i'm inclined to
>think that this is a language change that has already happened.
>
>arnold
>
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