[Lingtyp] Intensification and causation

Sun Oct 17 03:49:58 UTC 2021

Dear Pier Marco,
Many thanks for the example and the transition path!
'Excessiveness' is one of the most typical source for intensification. What is interesting of the intensification-as-causer construction is that it seems to have gone a step forwad, i.e.
                   'exceedingly/overwhelmingly tall' --> 'very tall' ---＞ 'tall, therefore fails to..'
      Actually, the unaccented 'A-de-hen' is used more to emphasize the state of 'be the cause of (a negative effect)' rather than expressing excessiveness.

Best,
Jeremy

--          

唐正大
中国社会科学院语言研究所《中国语文》编辑部
北京市建国门内大街5号，100732

Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
No.5 Jianguomennei Dajie, Beijing, China; 100732

At 2021-10-16 18:11:59, "Pier Marco Bertinetto" <piermarco.bertinetto at sns.it> wrote:

The same change is occurring in Italian.

'Troppo' has the same negative overtone as Fr. 'trop', but for young people it is also a frequently used intensifiers.

The transition is easy to analyze: 'troppo bello' = 'exceedingly/overwhelmingly beautiful' --> 'very beautiful'.

Best

Pier Marco

Il giorno sab 16 ott 2021 alle ore 11:56 Jesse P. Gates <stauskad at gmail.com> ha scritto:

Dear Jeremy,

Could you tell us the precise Chinese dialect that this construction occurs in? In many other Chinese dialects 'Adj.-de-hen' is simply an intensification construction, so it is interesting how this dialect that you speak of has constrained the meaning so specifically to a cause to negative effect meaning. 

Languages often have a choice between a negative intensifier and a positive one. 

I think in English 'too' often has negative overtones to it, but not always. 

In French, 'trop' is a negative intensifier and 'tres' is a positive one. But I have heard that this is changing a bit and young people on the streets use trop for some positive senses. 

When I first started studying Chinese it took me a while to understand that 太 did not intensify in a negative way, necessarily. For example, if I say in English, 'he's too fast', that usually means something negative (like I can't catch him or beat him in a race), it usually doesn't mean 'he is very fast' in a neutral way or 'he's so fast' in a positive way. But in Mandarin 他太快了 can be used for the meaning 'he is very fast', it can be used to get a neutral, or negative, or positive meaning. 

--

Best regards,

Jesse P. Gates, PhD
Nankai University, School of Literature 南开大学文学院
https://nankai.academia.edu/JesseGates

On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 2:55 PM tangzhengda <tangzhengda at 126.com> wrote:

Dear colleagues,

In a certain NW Chinese dialect the adjective phrase of 'Adj.-de-hen' (roughly taken to mean 'very Adj.') can only be used on condition that it take the role of a CAUSE, or a 'causing state', by which a NEGATIVE EFFECT is resulted. The Negative effect, as an 'event' that has never factually happen, can be encoded as another clause, an element of the same clause, or totally covertly implied.  For example,

                             INTS as CAUSE       NEG EFFECT
         这   鸡            瘦-得-很，               他  不    买
        this chicken    thin-de-very,             he   NEG. buy.

        (When buying chickens)         这   鸡            瘦-得-很。  
                                                       this chicken    thin-de-very
                                                       'The chicken is thin (therefore he cannot buy it/it fails to be worth...)'

      （See a chicken roaming by, no intent to buy）     * 这   鸡            瘦-得-很
                                                                                        this chicken    thin-de-very

 My wonder is whether some correlation exists between the intensification of a property (like an AP magnified by the degree words) and the CAUSTION, esp. negative ones (in Barros 2003, positive cause plus a negative effect is one type of the negative caustion where the relata is termed as 'prevention/interference').  Perhaps English 'too...to...' could be such a construction to connect the state/property and an EVENT.  If yes, how is the correlation motivated and typologically attested?

With best wishes,
Jeremy

--

唐正大
中国社会科学院语言研究所《中国语文》编辑部
北京市建国门内大街5号，100732

Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
No.5 Jianguomennei Dajie, Beijing, China; 100732

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