[Lingtyp] Query: Elided Intensification

[Ilana Mushin]

I can also confirm ‘sweet as’ in Australian English. I’ve seen it on advertising billboards. I think the construction ‘X as’ can be somewhat productive - eg I’ve certainly heard ‘dumb as’.  There is a particular intonation that goes with the construction - the ‘as’ is lengthened  and has a rise-fall contour so it doesn’t sound incomplete (this is impressionistic - someone may have a better idea of the prosody than me).

Ilana

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On 12 Apr 2021, at 5:27 am, 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

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Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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