Cognitive motivation in English complex intensifying adjectives

Abstract

This paper addresses the cognitive determinants of intensification in English complex intensifying adjectives, also taking an eye to prefixation and adjective reduplication. Based on qualitative data analysis, we shall see that configurational structures such as degree, scale and boundedness play a key role, and that the development into intensifiers involves a move from objective meanings towards subjectivity. Importantly, intensification rests on a shift from content domains to the configurational domain of degree via conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy, which can also operate on perceptually salient maximum reference points. Working on the assumption of parallel conceptualizations for intensifying phrases and word-formations, the chapter argues for three broad mechanisms of intensification in line with research on patterns of intensification in phrasal constructs: a degree type (all-new), a semantic-feature-copying type (snow-white, freezing cold), and a type where intensification relies on the integration of scales which associate with lexical meanings typically located in different knowledge domains (red hot and roaring drunk).

Keywords

• English
• complex adjectives
• conceptualization
• constructs
• intensification