7.654, Sum: "terrible" emphasis

[The Linguist List]

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-7-654. Sat May 4 1996. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines:  73
 
Subject: 7.654, Sum: "terrible" emphasis
 
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1)
Date:  Fri, 03 May 1996 19:21:07 +0200
From:  eloufjdb at cetus.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE ("Dr. Elke Hentschel")
Subject:   "terrible" emphasis
 
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date:  Fri, 03 May 1996 19:21:07 +0200
From:  eloufjdb at cetus.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE ("Dr. Elke Hentschel")
Subject:   "terrible" emphasis
 
Dear colleagues,
 
two weeks ago, I posted the following query:
 
>While considering expressions like "terribly nice" or "awfully
>kind", I became interested in the question of the universality of this
>kind of emphasis. I know it occurs in German and in Serbocroatian as well -
>but what about other languages? Any example is welcome.
 
I have received about 40 answers; THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!
 
So far, I have been able to compile the following list of languages (in
alphabetical order) that have similar expressions:
 
Afrikaans	Cairene Arabic
Basque		Bulgarian
Catalan		Chinese
Corean		Dutch
English		Farsi
Finnish		French
German		modern Greek
modern Hebrew  	Hungarian		
Japanese	Polish		
Portugese	Russian		
Serbo-Croat	Slovak		
Spanish		Swedish		
Turkish		Yuroba		
 
It seems that expressions like "terribly nice" are indeed a wide-spread
and possibly even universal phenomenon, and I am sure it occurs in much
more languages than I have been able to gather so far.
 
If anybody knows a language that should be added to the list, I would be
_awfully kind_ :) of them to let me know!
 
Thank you very much in advance
 
Elke Hentschel
 
jasam at zedat.fu-berlin.de
eloufjdb at sp.zrz.tu-berlin.de
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