[Lingtyp] Query: Elided Intensification

[Bohnemeyer, Juergen]

Dear David — Heine & Kuteva (2004 [2002]: 46) have examples from a bunch of language for ‘arrive at’, ‘reach’ > ‘until’ (temporal). Uses of _hasta_ ‘until’, ‘as far as’ as a scalar focus particle ‘even’ are commonplace in Mexican Spanish and probably other (non-European) dialects of Spanish as well. Made up example:

Hasta frijol    comi-ó
until	  beans eat-3SG.PRT
‘(S)he/it ate even BEANS’

It doesn’t seem far-fetched to go from a scalar focus particle to an intensifier, although I can’t cite an independent example of that pathway. 

Best — Juergen

Heine, B. & T. Kuteva. (2004 [2002]). World lexicon of grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

> On Apr 11, 2021, at 3:26 PM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
> 
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I'm interested in exploring the properties and geographical distribution of a novel (well, to me at least) construction type which might be termed "Elided Intensification'.  I'll explain with an example.  In Papuan Malay, property-denoting and some other words may be intensified by the addition of sampe, a word whose other, more basic functions, include 'arrive' and 'until', e.g.
>  
> (1)       Enak sampe
>             nice SAMPE
>             'Very nice.'
>  
> My informal "interpretation" of this construction is that it involves, or at least originated in, some kind of understood expression such as "nice arriving (at complete fulfillment)", or "nice until (completion)".  As Papuan Malay is largely head-initial, it kind of feels like something is missing after the word sampe.  (In Malay/Indonesian, this construction seems to be restricted geographically to the north coast of New Guinea and possibly also Northern Maluku; elsewhere it is absent.)
>  
> So far, I am familiar with two other potential cases of Elided Intensification.  The first is from Ambel, an Austronesian language spoken in the Raja Ampat archipelago of the northwest coast of New Guinea, in a region where Papuan Malay is also spoken.  As described by Arnold (2018:145, pers comm), aya 'until' is used in a construction closely resembling that in (1):
>  
> (2)       Anlómo aya 
>             bleed.3SG.INAN AYA
>             ‘It bled a lot.’
>  
> Arnold, Laura. 2018.  A Grammar of Ambel, An Austronesian Language of West New Guinea. PhD Dissertation.  Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
>  
> The second example, which I just came across, and which prompted this query, is Australian English.  In the Wikipedia entry for Australian English, in a paragraph which deals with the infensification of adjectives, the following rather tantalizing passage occurs:
>  
> "In informal speech, incomplete comparisons are sometimes used, such as "sweet as" (as in "That car is sweet as.")."
>  
> So here it's comparative 'as' rather than 'arrive'/'until' that comes after the word being intensified, but still, all these cases seem to involve intensification with the elision of some kind of argument associated with the property word and denoting an extreme extent of the property in question.
>  
> My questions:
>  
> 1.  Could speakers of Australian English please confirm the existence of this construction, and comment on it.  Does it occur in other varieties of English?  (It was certainly completely new to me!)
>  
> 2.  Is anybody familiar with possible cases of Elided Intensification in other languages, in Australia, New Guinea or elsewhere?  On the flimsy basis of three examples, it looks like an Australian / New Guinea areal feature: is this the case?  For the Australia / New Guinea region I'd also appreciate negative data, of the form "no, my language definitely doesn't do this".
>  
> 3.  Any further comments and suggestions ...
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> David
>  
>  
> 
> -- 
> David Gil
>  
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>  
> Email: 
> gil at shh.mpg.de
> 
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> 
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Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
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