[Lingtyp] Evaluative morphology expressing "authenticity/prototypicality"

Wed Jul 10 13:14:15 UTC 2024

Thanks, Mira and Randy, for the clarification. I wasn't aware of the three-way distinction but as you say, I guess the intensification principle holds nonetheless, as indeed with the Italian example I cited in my earlier post.
Nigel

Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
The University of Manchester

Linguistics & English Language
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester

https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
________________________________
From: Randy LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
Sent: 10 July 2024 2:59 PM
To: Nigel Vincent <nigel.vincent at manchester.ac.uk>
Cc: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Evaluative morphology expressing "authenticity/prototypicality"

Hi Nigel My experience with the words cookie and biscuit in England, the US, and Australia is that they mean different things in all three places. The Aussies use both words, with biscuit being the unmarked term, and cookie being used for what
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Hi Nigel
My experience with the words cookie and biscuit in England, the US, and Australia is that they mean different things in all three places. The Aussies use both words, with biscuit being the unmarked term, and cookie being used for what they call the American style cookie, as in the photo. For Americans, at least in the northeast, where I am from, when you go to Ms Field’s Cookies, or get a cookie with a meal at Subway, it is this large soft cookie that one thinks of and gets. For us, biscuits are small dried cracker-like things. (Though there is another use of biscuit in the south, as in biscuits and gravy, where it refers to a small bun.)

Even though we use the same words, the extension of the cognitive categories they are labels for (what things the label can apply to), and the prototype exemplar around which the category is formed are different. And this is when we are supposedly speaking the same language! It is even more problematic when we try to translate across languages.

All the best,
Randy

On Jul 10, 2024, at 8:39 PM, Nigel Vincent <nigel.vincent at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:

Interesting - I'd have interpreted that ad to mean not 'central/prototype' but something more evaluative: 'the best you can get' or words to that effect. The picture doesn't look like what I would consider a prototype cookie (or biscuit, as I would say!).
Nigel

Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
The University of Manchester

Linguistics & English Language
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester

https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Randy LaPolla via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: 10 July 2024 2:23 PM
To: <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org> <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Evaluative morphology expressing "authenticity/prototypicality"

Mira’s message reminded me of an English example where repetition narrows the term to central/prototype inferences:

<image.png>

In case the image doesn’t come out, it is the tag line on Pepperidge Farms’ Captiva cookie:
“If you’re going to have a cookie, have a cookie”

Randy

On Jul 10, 2024, at 15:42, Mira Ariel via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

Dear Francesca and others,

I'm curious to know if these prototypicalization morphemes sometimes evolve an intensifying function later.

Bardenstein and I have a paper  in Studies in Language  46:2 (2022), where we trace the evolution of a number of intensifiers. Lo and behold, they evolve from expressions which narrow the application of the term to its central/prototpycal instances. Later on this narrower may evolve an intensifying function. We only discuss independent modifiers, but reduplication, even morphological one, can indicate intensification:

Hebrew:

Yafe        yafe                          
Beautiful   beautiful                       
'Central concept of beautiful (not 'more or less beautiful')'/'Very beautiful'        

Yefe.fe (lexical reduplication)                 
'Very beautiful'                             

Best,
Mira (Ariel)
________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Riccardo Giomi via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 9, 2024 9:07 PM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Evaluative morphology expressing "authenticity/prototypicality"

Dear Francesca (and all),

Leti (Austronesian) has an "exactness" marker -- which again, actually appears to be a clitic, but anyway:

  1.  a.    N-tivl=e.                b.   N-tivla.

           3.SG-flap=EXCT              3.SG-flap
           ‘It flaps.’                     ‘It sort of flaps.’

  (2) a.    vuar=lalavn=e            b.   vuar=lalavn
          big=mountain=EXCT           big=mountain
          ‘a big mountain’               ‘a sort of a big mountain’

van Engelenhoven, Aone, 2004. Leti, a Language of Southwest Maluku (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 211). KITLV Press, Leiden.

Best wishes,
Riccardo

Riccardo Giomi
Assistant Professor of Functional Linguistics
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Humanities: Department of Linguistics
Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: 09 July 2024 19:44
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Evaluative morphology expressing "authenticity/prototypicality"

Dear Francesca,

Cabecar (Chibchan) has a a formative sí̱ with a twofold distribution:

a) As a derivational suffix on nouns, it means 'authentic', 'prototypical':

  1.  a. chíchi-sí̱

dog-auth

            ‘authentic dog’

b. ju-sí̱

house-auth

            ‘authentic/real/legitimate house (i.e. traditional Cabecar house)’

b) As an enclitic on adjectives, it means 'comparatively':

  1.  a. báá=sí̱

nice=cmpr

            ‘comparatively/truly nice’

b. daláá=sí̱

yellow=cmpr

            ‘genuinely yellow’

It fulfills this latter function in comparative constructions, too.

Best, Christian

--

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.:   +49/361/2113417
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