The Subjectivity And Subjectification Of Deadjectival Intensifiers

It is widely acknowledged that intensifiers all go back to adjectives or adverbs that originally had non-scalar meanings,and only acquired scalarity in the course of time.This is especially so for deadjectival intensifiers,namely,those derived from adjectives.In order for them to be capable of imposing scalar readings on other clausal elements,the adverbs themselves,or the corresponding adjectives,must have undergone a semantic change.The current study aims at a systematic account of the motivation behind this categorial shift,an issue unattempted so far.Anchored in the subjectivity and subjectification theory in cognitive linguistics,it is hypothesized that subjectification is the driving force for these deadjectival or deadverbial forms to acquire the status of intensifiers,which are inherently subjective in their involvement of attitudes,beliefs and emotions of the speaker/conceptualizer.To substantiate this hypothesis,we make a through exploration of the whole deadjectival intensifier category.A refined classification of deadjectival intensifiers,according to their status and sources,is made:prototypical Dis,those derived from related adjectives which acquire intensifying sense well before their adverbialization;non-prototypical Dis,those converted from adverbials,to be subdivided into those converted from manner adjuncts and those from disjuncts.The rise of these three subtypes of Dis are analysed within a cognitive linguistic framework.Specifically,for prototypical Dis,gradability,as the semantic prerequisite for their generation,is a subjectively construed notion in the schematic domain of gradable adjectives,thereby a ease of subjectification when they are converted into intensifiers,with the foregrounding of the schematic domain and the backgrounding of the content domain.For adjunct-converted DIs,subjectification is witnessed not only semantically,in the shift from an objectively construed notion of verbal action to a subjectively construed notion of degree,but also syntactically,in the leftward shift of modifying positions in accord with an increase in subjectivity.This hypothesis of subjectification,however,does not bear out in the case of disjunct-converted DIs,whose acquisition of intensifying meaning is actually a case of desubjectification:semantically, from direct expression of speaker evaluation to speaker judgement with respect to degree; and syntactically,in terms of a shift from the leftmost modifying position,a syntactic position which is inherently speaker-related,to one that is not necessarily so.To demonstrate the diachronic sequence of semantic change and the directionality of subjectification,we carry out two case studies,absolutely and definitely with respect to their semantic paths,representative of prototypical and non-prototypical DIs respectively. The analytical model is an integration of Langacker's synchronic framework and Traugott's diachronic framework on subjectification.It is found out that for absolutely,the more recent development from intensifier use onwards is a case of intersubjectification, while for definitely,its recent transition from intersubjective sense to intensifying sense is actually a case of desubjectification.These observations serve as both a claimer and a disclaimer for the hypothesis of subjectification as a mechanism for the rise of Dis,in its predominance but not universality in this process.They also demonstrate that intensifiers occupy no more than an intermediate position on the cline of subjectivity,and that the unidirectionality of subjectification is not universal.The approach taken for the present study has provided a new perspective for the interpretation of deadjectival intensifiers and perhaps for intensifiers in general,and its findings are revealing for the future research on subjectivity and subj ectification.