The morphology and semantics of expressive affixes
This dissertation focuses on two aspects of expressive affixes: their morphological/typological properties and their semantics. With regard to the former, it shows that the expressive morphology of many languages (including Bantu, West Atlantic, Walman, Sanskrit, English, Romance, Slavic, and others), has the following properties: 1) it is systematically anomalous when compared to plain morphology, or the ordinary processes of word-formation and inflection. From this, it follows that many familiar morphological arguments that adduce the data of expressive morphology ought to be reconsidered; and 2) it is far more pervasive than has been traditionally thought. For example, the Sanskrit preverb, and the Indo-European aspectual prefix/particle generally, are shown to have systematically expressive functions. With respect to the semantics of expressive affixes, it develops a novel multidimensional account, in the sense of Potts (2005, 2007), of Spanish ~connotative affixes,~ which can simultaneously convey descriptive and expressive meaning. It shows that their descriptive meaning is that of a gradable adjective, viewed as a degree relation which includes a measure function, in the sense of Kennedy (1997). The
Fortin, Antonio
Linguistics ; Spanish ; Emotion ; semantics ; pragmatics ; morphology ; expressives ; typology
The morphology and semantics of expressive affixes. This dissertation focuses on two aspects of expressive affixes: their morphological/typological properties and their semantics. With regard to the former, it shows that the expressive morphology of many languages (including Bantu, West Atlantic, Walman, Sanskrit, English, Romance, Slavic, and others), has the following properties: 1) it is systematically anomalous when compared to plain morphology, or the ordinary processes of word-formation and inflection. From this, it follows that many familiar morphological arguments that adduce the data of expressive morphology ought to be reconsidered; and 2) it is far more pervasive than has been traditionally thought. For example, the Sanskrit preverb, and the Indo-European aspectual prefix/particle generally, are shown to have systematically expressive functions. With respect to the semantics of expressive affixes, it develops a novel multidimensional account, in the sense of Potts (2005, 2007), of Spanish ~connotative affixes,~ which can simultaneously convey descriptive and expressive meaning. It shows that their descriptive meaning is that of a gradable adjective, viewed as a degree relation which includes a measure function, in the sense of Kennedy (1997). The
morphology semantics expressive affix focus_two aspect expressive affix morphological typological property semantics regard former show expressive morphology many language include bantu west atlantic english romance slavic others follow property systematically anomalous compare plain morphology ordinary process word_formation inflection follow many familiar morphological argument adduce data expressive morphology ought reconsider far pervasive traditionally think example indo_european aspectual prefix particle generally show systematically expressive function respect semantics expressive affix develop_novel multidimensional account sense spanish affix simultaneously convey descriptive expressive meaning show descriptive mean gradable adjective view degree relation include measure function sense