Intensifiers

While the study of Mandarin Chinese intensifiers has been prolific, the methodologies used have been limited to comparative and grammaticalization studies, revealing little about the discourse-pragmatic usages of individual intensifiers. Utilizing a balanced corpus composed of 15 different prototypical genres, the associative strength of 12 commonly used intensifiers in each genre was statistically determined based on their frequency distribution. The results reveal a clear preference pattern of intensifiers across a range of “written” and “spoken”-based genres. Upon the premise that the genre preferences of intensifiers stem from matching dimensions of communicative intent/discourse context between genre and intensifier, genre-analysis was conducted to unveil the core “stances” each intensifier might possibly project. In conclusion, it is argued that genre-analysis based on empirical corpus data provides a valid alternative means to uncover seemingly “covert” aspects of language use.

This study investigates how age, gender, social class and dialect influence how frequently speakers of British English use intensifiers (e.g. 'very') in private conversations and whether this has changed over the last two decades. With data drawn from over 600 speakers and 4 M. words included in the British National Corpus 1994 and 2014, it is the most comprehensive study of intensifier usage to date, taking into account 111 intensifier variants. Results show that, in most age groups and social classes, men use intensifiers less frequently than women, and gender differences have diminished to a very limited extent, notably for the middle class. Moreover, intensification rate has increased across the board over time. This could be due to a shift towards a stereotypically more feminine communicative style as the perception of gender roles has changed, a process by which the middle class might have been particularly affected.

Schneider, Ulrike and Matthias Eitelmann (eds.). 2020. Linguistic Inquiries into Donald Trump’s Language. From ‘Fake News’ to ‘Tremendous Success’. London/New York: Bloomsbury.

https://bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/5f33abb6dc0e82000176fa89

From an abundance of intensifiers to frequent repetition and parallelisms, Donald Trump's idiolect is highly distinctive from that of other politicians and previous Presidents of the United States. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this book identifies the characteristic features of Trump's language and argues that his speech style, often sensationalized by the media, differs from the usual political rhetoric on more levels than is immediately apparent.

Chapters examine Trump's tweets, inaugural address, political speeches, interviews, and presidential debates, revealing populist language traits that establish his idiolect as a direct reflection of changing social and political norms. The authors scrutinize Trump's conspicuous use of nicknames, the definite article, and conceptual metaphors as strategies of othering and antagonising his opponents. They further shed light on Trump's fake news agenda and his mutation of the conventional political apology which are strategically implemented for a political purpose.

Drawing on methods from corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, and critical discourse analysis, this book provides a multifaceted investigation of Trump's language use and addresses essential questions about Trump as a political phenomenon.

В русском языке существует конструкция X от слова Y, использующаяся для отсылки читателя к словообразовательному или этимологическому источнику. Однако в современном языке (прежде всего в интернете) получили распространение выражения вроде финальный от слова совсем. Как показано в статье, конструкция X от слова совсем возникла естественным для языка образом в результате процесса грамматикализации. Путь грамматикализации представляет собой типологически распространенный переход от элементов со значениями «true» и «bad» к показателям интенсификации. То, что это выражение не является результатом ошибки и не представляет собой игру слов, а следует глубинной логике языка, подтверждается, во-первых, употреблением в различных коммуникативных ситуациях, а во-вторых — наличием целого ряда иных выражений, устроенных до определенной степени сходным образом и развивающихся в качестве самостоятельных языковых элементов.

In Russian, there is a construction X ot slova Y ‘X of the word Y’, which can be used to indicate a derivative or an etymological source of a word in order to resolve ambiguity. However, the expression may be found in the Internet in a different form — X ot slova sovsem, which can be roughly translated as ‘X of at all’, by analogy with a prince of a friend. Standard language rules forbid expressions of the sort, nevertheless, it is argued in the article, it is a natural expression of Modern Russian. The new construction is an intensifier and in its rise follows specific patterns of grammaticalization, which are typologically usual for the intensifiers, such as TRUE > intensifier or BAD > intensifier. Other evidence in favour of natural kind of the expression are its successful use in various communication situations and formation of similar constructions, some of which continued later to develop as independent language elements.

Intensifiers and reflexives have been studied as features both in areal linguistics and in the context of substratum hypotheses. While typical SAE languages differentiate between intensifiers and reflexives, English, Welsh and Irish
use complex intensifiers for both functions. This article discusses the two strategies with regard to their diachronic developments, starting with PIE. Complex intensifiers
are first recorded in Old British and emerge only later in English and Irish. These complex intensifiers are then increasingly used as reflexives, constituting an instance of areal divergence from SAE between the late Middle Ages
and the early modern period. Breton, on the other hand, maintains its intensifier – reflexive differentiation due to areal convergence.

Evaluative morphemes (EVs) consist of the elements: diminutives, augmentatives, pejoratives and amelioratives. Although these elements are known to be derivations that express the values: small, big, bad, good; there are many EVs features neglected by common definitions. EVs can sometimes fulfil two different functions at the same time and even become part of the grammar of a language. How and what material EVs evolve from, decides how they are later embedded in a grammar. Three of those processes are illustrated in the development of EVs in three unrelated languages through which Evaluative morphology could be subdivided in at least three different types.

Variationist sociolinguists have repeatedly shown that language variation is constrained by multiple language-external and -internal factors (Bayley 2002: 118). Two of the main language-external factors found to affect language variation are region/locality and register; yet research that combines the investigation of geographical variation with that of register variation has only just begun (see, for example, Balasubramanian (2009) on Indian English; Bao and Hong (2006) on Singapore English; Neumann (2012, in press) on the Englishes spoken in Canada, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Jamaica). This chapter contributes to this line of research. It uses phenograms, a type of phylogenetic network, for an investigation of discourse-pragmatic variation across national varieties and registers. Analysis of the distribution of forty-seven intensifier variants in twelve registers of Indian, Singapore, Philippine and British English reveals how this semi-automatic method of data analysis enables researchers to examine and uncover patterns of discourse-pragmatic variation in large datasets that are not easily amenable to manual analysis. The results reveal variety-consistent effects of formality on intensifier frequency, and variety-specific preferences for certain intensifier variants. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows: Section 2 gives a brief overview of previous research on intensifier usage in English. After the description of the data and methods in Section 3, the results are presented and discussed in Sections 4 and 5. Section 6 is the conclusion.

In this paper I examine the multifunctional enclitic =go in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Avar. By means of a semantic map I show that its central function is the expression of emphasis and/or contrast. Other uses are the expression of identity, scalar additivity, reflexivity (including local and long-distance reflexives, emphatic reflexive uses), the marking of indefinite pronouns and adverbs, and the derivation of cardinal numerals and converbs. The paper also advances a hypothesis about the origin of =go and argues that it goes back to the copula -ugo. The use of the copula in cleft constructions gave rise to the emphatic/contrastive function, and all other uses can be viewed as extension of this function.

While the study of Mandarin Chinese intensifiers has been prolific, the methodologies used have been limited to comparative and grammaticalization studies, revealing little about the discourse-pragmatic usages of individual intensifiers. Utilizing a balanced corpus composed of 15 different prototypical genres, the associative strength of 12 commonly used intensifiers in each genre was statistically determined based on their frequency distribution. The results reveal a clear preference pattern of intensifiers across a range of “written” and “spoken”-based genres. Upon the premise that the genre preferences of intensifiers stem from matching dimensions of communicative intent/discourse context between genre and intensifier, genre-analysis was conducted to unveil the core “stances” each intensifier might possibly project. In conclusion, it is argued that genre-analysis based on empirical corpus data provides a valid alternative means to uncover seemingly “covert” aspects of language use.

This report is a scientific report of research on cultural differences and language differences between Dutch and English. In this study, the role of intensifiers in these languages was researched using hotel reviews, available on Tripadvisor.com. Not only the intensifier itself is analyzed, also the different types and how they differ in type and frequency in the reviews in English and Dutch. In addition, it is investigated whether there is a relation between positive and negative evaluations and the intensity markers that are used. Earlier research has shown that the comments about products or services are  a very important part in consumer buying behavior. They can influence the image of an organization in a positive or negative way and they are therefore of great value. Often, reviews are written in English or in the native language of the writer. Then they can be translated into a language of your choice so that everyone can understand all the comments. All languages have a different culture and language use differs by culture. Some people will report about their experiences greatly exaggerated or vice versa. The question is if comments that are written in different languages can be compared? In this research, the use of English and Dutch are compared using different statistical techniques. It can be concluded that there is a significant difference between the frequency and the type of intensifier between English and Dutch. There is a significant relation between the evaluation of comments and frequency of intensifier either.

Keywords: language, reviews, tripadvisor, evaluations, opinions, intensifiers, culture, culturedifferences.

In Modern Welsh, the intensifier X hun(an) is also used as a reflexive pronoun. However, this functional expansion is recent and becomes productive only after the Middle Welsh period. The present quantitative study based on the corpora Rhyddiaith y 13eg Ganrif and Rhyddiaith Gymraeg / Welsh Prose 1300-1425 reveals that in Middle Welsh X hun(an) is used almost exclusively as an intensifier, while reflexivity is coded by the verbal prefix ym-or by plain pronouns. Verbs coded with either strategy have very similar semantics, denoting positive or negative self-directed actions. It is however difficult to find a feature that connects the fourteen, partly controversial instances of reflexive X hun(an) contained in the corpora. 1 INTRODUCTION The different types of reflexive markers are a much discussed areal feature of the languages of Western Europe. * While the markers of most European languages, like e.g. German sich, French se or Italian si are based on the PIE reflexive pronoun *s(w)e 1 , English and the neighbouring Insular Celtic languages Welsh and Irish 2 employ different markers originating from intensifers. As a result, reflexive markers and intensifiers are different in the former group, but not in the latter. German expresses reflexivity with the pronouns mich, dich, sich, etc. (ex. 1a, 1b), while uninflected selbst 'self' is used as an intensifer (ex. 1c adnominal, 1c adverbal), English uses my-, your-, himself, etc. in both cases. (1) (a) German Ich sehe mich im Spiegel. reflexive English I see myself in the mirror. (b) German Er spricht ständig mit sich. reflexive English He keeps talking to himself. (c) German Der Präsident selbst wird der Feier beiwohnen. intensifier English The President himself will attend the ceremony. (d) German Der Präsident schrieb seine Rede selbst. intensifier English The President wrote his speech himself. A formal similarity of intensifiers / reflexives is to be observed especially between English and Welsh. Both languages have complex markers consisting of a pronoun inflected according to person, number and gender coupled with a second element, which is self in English, hun in North Welsh and hunan in South Welsh (table 1). In addition, both markers originate from intensifiers and are in use with such function.

The study aims to identify, in relation with language use, the factors accounting for grammaticalization and pragmaticalization of ‘niVMGEN’-constructions involving vulgar and euphemistic minimizers (ni chrena (ne), ni figa (ne), etc), which have been reanalysed into negative polarity items. The outcome of the grammaticalization process is a typically univerbated lexical unit that expresses emphatic negation and operates at the negative pole increasing the pragmatic impact of the utterance. The contrastive approach highlights similarities in the use of minimizers between Russian and Italian, putting a spotlight on links among different cognitive domains such as negation, quantification and intensification.

انعکاسی ها در  مطالعات زبان شناسی به آن دسته از واحدهای زبانی اطلاق می شوند که به جهت رمزگذاری هم مرجع بودگی  میان فاعل و موضوع دیگر فعل (مفعول مستقیم یا غیر مستقیم) و یا کنشگر و  یک نقش معنایی دیگر در جمله به کار گرفته می شوند. این عناصر در برخی از زبان های دنیا از جمله فارسی و انگلیسی، با یک صورت واحد، نقش تأکید برگروه اسمی را نیز  برعهده دارند. صورت های مذکور در دستورهای سنتی، ضمایر تأکیدی  نامیده می شوند. انعکاسی و تأکیدی بودن این صورت های یکسان را نمی توان خارج از بافت تعیین نمود. شواهد مبتنی بر رده شناسی و زبان شناسی تاریخی حاکی از آنند که منشاء تکوین  انعکاسی ها در بیشتر زبان های دنیا، واژگان وابسته به «بدن» و «شخص»  بوده اند. در این مختصر برآنیم تا تکوین انعکاسی ها و انعکاسی های تأکیدی در زبان فارسی را مورد واکاوی قرار دهیم و نشان دهیم این عناصرکه به طور مشخص واحدهای «خود»، «خویش» و «خویشتن» را در بر می گیرند از منابع واژگانی صفت ملکی، قید تأکید و واژگان مربوط به «بدن» پا به عرصه-ی وجود گذاشته اند. تحول حاضر  در مسیر دستوری شدگی و بر اساس اصول  مهم این فرآیند  از جمله لایه بندی به وقوع پیوسته است. داده ها نشان دهنده ی این حقیقت کاربرد بنیادند که از میان سه سازه ی معرفی شده، تنها سازه ی «خود»،  که با منبع واژگانی قید تأکید، کاربرد تأکید بر گروه اسمی را بر عهده دارد، دیگر مفاهیم انعکاس، از جمله هم مرجعی مالک و فاعل، و فاعل و انواع مفعول را نیز بازنمایی می کند.  این سازه، در ادامه ی مسیر تحول خود به لحاظ ساختاری و در بافت گفتمان غیر رسمی، در هر دو نفش دستوری خود همراه با پی بست های ضمیری تظاهر می یابد. بر اساس یافته های مقاله ی حاضر، به لحاظ تاریخی و در تاریخ نظام انعکاسی ها، اضافه شدن پی بست های ضمیری به عناصر تأکیدی، در جهت ابهام زدایی و شفافیت بخشیدن به روال انعکاس و تأکید بر هم مرجعی با فاعل  است
کلیدواژه ها: انعکاسی ها، تأکیدی ها، دستوری شدگی، پی بست-های ضمیری، فارسی.

The question of whether and how women and men differ in their language is a topic of keen interest both to scholars and to the general public, including in India. Scholarly interest in this topic has resulted in a steady stream of publications on gender-based variation in language. Publications intended for a general readership, such as Gray's () book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, have been as popular in India as in other countries (see Valentine : ). While at least some Indians appear to be receptive to such publications, originally written for a Western audience, it is unclear to what extent gender identities in India are constructed in a manner similar to that in Western countries. There is no reason to assume that 'gender means the same across communities', an attitude that Valentine (: ) criticised as prevalent in previous research. Overall, then, gender-based variation in language appears to be a topic of lively debate in India as in many other countries. More than just being of public interest, stereotypes related to gender-based differences in language may also be harmful if they are the basis of discrimination or sanction when individuals do not conform to stereotypical, gendered communicative practices. It is therefore vital that we develop a clearer, empirical analysis of gender-based variation in language, and that not just for varieties such as American and British English (BrE), but, in a cross-cultural perspective, also for varieties such as Indian and Singapore English. Our current state of knowledge in this regard is fairly limited as there has been little research on gender-based variation in varieties of English spoken in India and, more generally, countries where English is used as a second language (ESL). The bulk of research in this area has focused on varieties of English as a native language (ENL), which, notwithstanding

Based on diachronic data extracted chiefly from the available lexicographic sources and historical corpora of Polish, this paper aims at determining whether the initial stage of the adverbialization of indefinite quantifiers of nominal origin typically involves extent modification, degree modification being a posterior development. The results of an investigation into the evolution of the functional status of the commonly used quantifiers trochę 'a bit', odrobinę 'a bit', as well as masę 'a lot' indicate that prior to establishing themselves as degree modifiers, the items function as extent modifiers, i.e. duratives or frequentatives. In their earliest adverbial attestations recorded in the analysed material, the quantifiers at issue modify the duration or frequency of the action denoted by the associated verbal element, or, if the pertinent verb encodes a punctual event, the duration of the resultant state, and only later do they start to combine with scalar predicates, i.e. degree verbs as well as gradable adjectives and adverbs, including adverbials in the form of prepositional phrases. Exceptional in this respect is masę 'a lot', as it (still) appears incapable of serving as a degree intensifier.

Previous work on adjectival intensification (e.g. very good, so glad, really great) has mostly focussed on the adverbs in question, showing that different (native) varieties of English display distinctive preferences concerning intensifier choice. However, little is known so far about the role that intensifier-adjective units (bigrams) play. The present paper offers a first contribution to fill this research gap by focussing on a data-driven approach to (mostly) high-frequency bigrams and their collocational behaviour in the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). Asymmetric and symmetric measures are employed to establish attraction and repulsion between adverb and adjective, while highlighting regional similarities and differences.

The paper presents a corpus-driven study of the Russian PP-based degree modifier do uzhasa (lit. ‘to horror’), suggesting a two-stage grammaticalization path. The first stage (presumably, XVIII–XIX c.) involves subjectification, while during the second stage, subjective readings give rise to intensifier readings through conceptual metonymy. Both stages see a host class expansion. This process is motivated by a complex interplay of factors, with analogy playing a major role. Finally, the evolution of do uzhasa is contrasted to that of the English PP-based intensifier to death. While there are obvious similarities, a closer look identifies a number of important differences that are relevant for the development of construction-based typology of language change.

While the study of Mandarin Chinese intensifiers has been prolific, the methodologies used have been limited to comparative and grammaticalization studies, revealing little about the discourse-pragmatic usages of individual intensifiers. Utilizing a balanced corpus composed of 15 different prototypical genres, the associative strength of 12 commonly used intensifiers in each genre was statistically determined based on their frequency distribution. The results reveal a clear preference pattern of intensifiers across a range of “written” and “spoken”-based genres. Upon the premise that the genre preferences of intensifiers stem from matching dimensions of communicative intent/discourse context between genre and intensifier, genre-analysis was conducted to unveil the core “stances” each intensifier might possibly project. In conclusion, it is argued that genre-analysis based on empirical corpus data provides a valid alternative means to uncover seemingly “covert” aspects of language use.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the intensifying function of german modal particles and equivalent modal expressions in croatian and english. Our hypothesis is that some modal particles in german and their functional equivalents in croatian and english can express different degrees of intensity and types of intensification. The presented study comprises two parts. first, the use of intensifying modal particles by a group of speakers of l1 croatian and l2 german/english is investigated. On the basis of the results obtained, and by means of a previously conducted corpus analysis (cf. Kresić and Batinić 2014), an intensification scale with respect to the inventory of german modal particles and corresponding particles in croatian as well as equivalent english expressions is suggested. Some german and croatian modal particles and equivalent modal elements in english can be classified on the upper and partially on the lower part of the proposed intensification scale when compared to t...

Based on a sample of 65 languages, this study tries to reveal the hidden relationship between co-referential possessors and intensifiers by virtue of the semantic map model. There is a cross-linguistic tendency that co-referential possessors use the same form as intensifiers instead of reflexives. In addition, this study tries to explain this cross-linguistic tendency by Pragmatic Principles in Neo-Gricean theory.

In recent decades, youth language has become one of the preferred research areas in sociolinguistics, not only because of its non-normative nature but mostly because it is recognized as a catalyst for language change. Since adolescents aspire to create and safeguard an in-group identity, they constantly generate innovative linguistic forms. However, few studies have empirically monitored the speed at which linguistic innovations are introduced into youth language. This study explores the speed and nature of recent language change within Spanish youth language by conducting a corpus analysis in real time. Data of the contemporary CORMA corpus (Corpus Oral de Madrid, compiled between 2016 and 2019) are contrasted with the highly comparable data of the COLAm corpus (Corpus Oral de Lenguaje Adolescente de Madrid, compiled between 2003 and 2007). The study scrutinizes two typical phenomena of youth language, namely the use of intensifiers (e.g., super-, mazo) and vocatives (e.g., tío/tía...

In recent decades, youth language has become one of the preferred research areas in sociolinguistics, not only because of its non-normative nature but mostly because it is recognized as a catalyst for language change. Since adolescents aspire to create and safeguard an in-group identity, they constantly generate innovative linguistic forms. However, few studies have empirically monitored the speed at which linguistic innovations are introduced into youth language. This study explores the speed and nature of recent language change within Spanish youth language by conducting a corpus analysis in real time. Data of the contemporary CORMA corpus (Corpus Oral de Madrid, compiled between 2016 and 2019) are contrasted with the highly comparable data of the COLAm corpus (Corpus Oral de Lenguaje Adolescente de Madrid, compiled between 2003 and 2007). The study scrutinizes two typical phenomena of youth language, namely the use of intensifiers (e.g., super-, mazo) and vocatives (e.g., tío/tía...

In recent decades, youth language has become one of the preferred research areas in sociolinguistics, not only because of its non-normative nature but mostly because it is recognized as a catalyst for language change. Since adolescents aspire to create and safeguard an in-group identity, they constantly generate innovative linguistic forms. However, few studies have empirically monitored the speed at which linguistic innovations are introduced into youth language. This study explores the speed and nature of recent language change within Spanish youth language by conducting a corpus analysis in real time. Data of the contemporary CORMA corpus (Corpus Oral de Madrid, compiled between 2016 and 2019) are contrasted with the highly comparable data of the COLAm corpus (Corpus Oral de Lenguaje Adolescente de Madrid, compiled between 2003 and 2007). The study scrutinizes two typical phenomena of youth language, namely the use of intensifiers (e.g., super-, mazo) and vocatives (e.g., tío/tía...

This investigation proposes a corpus-based description of a particular
type of Italian phraseological construction, having a coordinated syntactic
structure and playing the role of an intensifier. Through the analysis of data
extracted from a corpus of Italian, the contribution aims at i) identifying and
analysing different types of coordinated constructional intensifiers, ii) showing a formal representation of their syntactic-semantic schemas, iii) classifying them into different types on the basis of their functional, syntactic and semantic properties. The paper is structured as follows: the first section contains a brief description of the main types of intensifying strategies identified in the literature, deserving a special attention to Italian lexical strategies. The second section is devoted to the description of the general theoretical framework of this contribution, and to the analysis and definition of constructional intensifiers.
The third section briefly describes the methods of data extraction and analysis.
The fourth section is devoted to the analysis of Italian coordinated intensifying constructions, which are classified into completely and partially filled units, according to a set of parameters (i.e. lexical variation, syntactic cohesion, idiomaticity and lexicalisation). Then, the set of coordinated constructional intensifiers is evaluated against the presence of an abstract scheme, semantic and syntactic analysability, semantic predictability, productivity, and schematicity.

This paper studies linguistic polarity in enhancement and collocation preference in a cognitive linguistic framework and using empirical methods, on the example of the enhancing expression félelmetesen ‘frightfully’. It is stated that the domain of negative emotions can be activated in semantic structure in an enhancing role, and can be processed as such during comprehension. The adverb under study, analogously to strong emotional effects, adds the meaning component ‘with high intensity’
to both positive and negative polarity expressions. Our corpus study has revealed that félelmetesen is more typically associated with positive than with negative value adjectives. Enhancing expressions taken from a negative source domain are in general use in European languages; this is not unrelated to neurological processes connected with fear and to the role of negative emotions in human behaviour.
Keywords: linguistic polarity, enhancement, negative emotion, congruence, collocation preference

Developing the competences needed to appropriately use linguistic resources according to contextual characteristics
(pragmatics) is as important as the culturally-imbedded linguistic knowledge itself (semantics), and both are equally
essential to form competent speakers of English in foreign language contexts. As such, this investigation relies on
corpus linguistics to analyze both the scope and the limitations of the sociolinguistic knowledge and the communicative
skills of English students at university level. To this end, a linguistic corpus was collected from spoken production of
EFL learners, compared to an existing corpus of native speakers, and analyzed in terms of the frequency, overuse,
underuse, misuse, ambiguity, success, and failure of the linguistic parameters used in speech acts. The findings herein
describe the linguistic configurations employed to modify levels and degrees of descriptions (salient semantic theme
exhibited in the EFL learners’ corpus). The study discovered problems regarding the students’ production in terms of
wrong word choices or forms, faulty word combinations, and incomplete or unsystematic structuring of expressions. It
concludes that expressions aiming at conveying or modifying degree are complex and should be viewed as units which
require modeling for a better appropriation of an in-context understanding of its linguistic use which corpus can assist.

This thesis proposes a revision of current definitions, as well as historical sources for intensifiers. In the existing literature (Bolinger 1972, Altenberg 1990, Biber et al. 1999, Quirk et al. 1985, Bardas 2008), only the objective function of intensification is discussed. But subjective intensification is very common as well, and I suggest that it should constitute part of the definition of the function of intensifiers.
I first propose a modified definition, based on natural discourse data, whereby intensifiers have three main functions; the first are two objective and the third is subjective: (1) objectively upscaling a linguistic meaning (2) restoring as an ad hoc interpretational linguistic meaning which has gone through a process of weakening by discourse use and (3) expressing a speaker's subjective stance or commitment.
Next, I discuss the semantic sources from which intensifiers grammaticize. The literature (Heine and Kuteva 2002) only recognizes two sources for intensifier grammaticization: 'Bad' and 'Truth'. My discourse analysis of English, Hebrew and Russian intensifiers includes the 'Truth' source Heine and Kuteva mention, deconstructs 'Bad' into two sub-sources: 'Extreme State of Affairs' and 'Unbelievable' and reveals four additional sources: 'Quantity', 'Totality', 'End of Scale' and 'Rhetorical'.

The aim of this paper is to provide further evidence for a unified analysis of todo-all as an intensifier and quantifier, which, we claim, is a sole lexical item and should be called a ‘degree modifier’. The evidence comes from Brazilian Portuguese, English, Southern Cone Spanish, French and Quebec French. The main advantage of our proposal is that the distinct readings are yielded depending on whether the degree modifier has scope over (i) a scale associated with a nominal extension and its degree of participation in an event (quantificational reading) or (ii) a scale associated with a degree adjective and a nominal extension holding an adjectival property (intensificational reading).

La red social Twitter puede ser una buena fuente de datos si se intenta estudiar fenómenos difíciles de documentar, puesto que proporciona una gran cantidad de datos que son en gran parte concepcionalmente cercanos a la oralidad. En este artículo expo-nemos los tipos de variación que podemos encontrar en esta red social y hacemos dos estu-dios de caso que demuestran su utilidad. En primer lugar, nos ocupamos del uso adverbial de puto, fenómeno muy coloquial y principalmente extendido entre los hablantes jóvenes y, en segundo lugar, analizamos la extensión de la forma se a otras personas en el para-digma reflexivo, fenómeno muy restringido diatópicamente. Social network Twitter can be a helpful data source in the study of hard-to-document phenomena, since it provides large quantities of data, most of which are conceptionally close to orality. In this paper we address the types of variation that we can find in this social network and conduct two case studies that illustrate its usefulness. First we deal with the adverbial use of puto, a very colloquial phenomenon mostly spread amongst young speakers and, secondly, we analyse the spread of the pronoun se to other verbal persons in the reflexive paradigm, a phenomenon that is very restricted in diatopic terms.

The aim of this paper is to provide further evidence for a unified analysis of todo-all as an intensifier and quantifier, which, we claim, is a sole lexical item and should be called a 'degree modifier'. The evidence comes from Brazilian Portuguese, English, Southern Cone Spanish, French and Quebec French. The main advantage of our proposal is that the distinct readings are yielded depending on whether the degree modifier has scope over (i) a scale associated with a nominal extension and its degree of participation in an event (quantificational reading) or (ii) a scale associated with a degree adjective and a nominal extension holding an adjectival property (intensificational reading).

This article focuses on the X is so NP-construction in American English, as exemplified by “Holding grudges is so last century” (SOAP, As the World Turns, 2002). Drawing on the Corpus of American Soap Operas (Davies 2011-), the aim of this study is to provide an account of the distributional pattern of noun phrase modification with so, including preferences in modified noun phrase (NP) types and concomitant differences in the meaning of so. The analyses reveal that, in line with subjectification theory on intensification (Athanasiadou 2007), so is expanding its functional range from intensification to emphasis. The findings suggest a near-complementary distribution of these meanings, with intensifying so (‘very’) dominating in affirmative sentences (especially with object pronouns and names; “It’s so Star Trek”; SOAP, Days of Our Lives, 2004), and emphatic so (‘definitely’) in negated utterances (especially with pre-modified NPs, such as “It is so not a date”; SOAP, One Life to Live, 2007). Furthermore, intensifying uses of so are restricted to NPs that exhibit adjective-like characteristics and invite metonymic referencing (Gonzálvez-García 2014). So is attested almost exclusively with the copula be, which might hint at restrictions at work in this construction. With respect to the distribution of GenX so across the character groups, the scriptwriters attributed most utterances to (younger) women, in terms of both token frequency and dispersion within the group. This paper shows that the observations pertaining to language variation and change made for adjective intensification (“so good”) also apply to NP intensification (“so 2020”).