Chapter Ⅱ Literature review
2.4 Cross-linguistic studies of degree intensifiers
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2.4 Cross-linguistic studies of degree intensifiers
2.4.1 Studies of degree intensifiers in English and other languages
Early studies on degree intensifiers in English mostly pay attention to the structure of the degree intensifiers and the diachronic language change. Stoffel (1901)
investigates the degree intensifiers such as very, quite and so from some literary texts from the Middle Ages. He discovers that the degree intensifiers may have possessed their lexical meanings in the beginning; yet, these meanings weakened over time (e.g., very in 16th century denotes “genuine” and loses this meaning later). Having interests in the diachronic approach, Partington (1993) adopts the BROWN and LOB corpora as an aid to observe the collocational behaviors of the degree intensifiers. Similar to Stoffel (1901), he proves the shifts in the meaning of degree intensifiers. The
following set of examples exemplifies how the degree intensifier really has performed differently (Partington 1993: 182). Really in (9a) still pertains its lexical meaning ‘in truth’ and could occur in the sentence-initial position. In (9b), really only serves to add intensity.
(9) a. Really, I could hear her thinking.
b. When the horsetail is really hot, wrap it up…
In addition, by analyzing the collocational behaviors in the corpora, Partington (1993) is able to find out that the combination of a degree intensifier and its modified
adjective may undergo lexicalization and grammaticalization over time.
Later, researchers tended to extract authentic usages from either written or spoken data to further examine degree intensifiers. Paradis (1997) investigates twenty-three degree modifiers in the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) and the LOB corpus. The use of degree modifiers occurs more frequently in the spoken corpus (LLC) than in the written one (LOB). Further, the intensifiers occur more than other subtypes in the subset of the degree modifiers in spoken data. Having examined the collocational
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behaviors in the corpora, Paradis further shows that the traditional view of gradability might not be able to sufficiently explain the meaning of the degree intensifiers and the post-elements (e.g., the semantic distinction between the sets very nice & *absolutely nice or absolutely impossible & *very impossible). She further argues that multilayers such as boundedness or intonation harmony should also be included when analyzing data. Wittouck (2011) also utilizes corpora (BNC and COCA) to investigate the grammaticalization of three intensifiers very, pretty, and damn. He finds that certain degree intensifiers would constantly co-occur with several adjectives and form a fixed expression when comparing the two corpora. For instance, damn occurs more
frequently in the COCA than in the BNC and usually collocates with good. In short, the corpus-derived approach provides a more thorough view on the view of degree intensifiers.
Some researchers are also interested in the effect of social factors such as age, gender, different language groups or other registers on the use of degree intensifiers.
Ito & Tagliamonte (2003) investigates the usages of eleven intensifiers (very, really, so, absolutely, pretty, too, that, right, totally, completely, bloody) in the York English Corpus, collected from particular speech communities across three different
generations. Two major findings were reported. First, in terms of the distributional analysis, the elder group tended to use degree intensifiers during speech more times.
The results for the use of the intensifiers very and really were found to be different across the three age groups. The degree intensifiers shift their usages from time to time. Second, based on the fact inferred previously, they claim that such differences correlate with the semantic category of adjectives (dimension, physical property, color, human propensity, age, value, speed, position) due to the width of the collocation. The results show that the intensifier very mostly collocates with the adjectival type of speed while really collocates with the adjectival type of physical
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property. Yet, they do not analyze the features of the degree intensifiers used among language groups further. On the other hand, some researchers are interested in how the degree intensifiers are selected. Certain degree intensifiers are preferably adopted for communicative purposes in a particular language community. It is reported that the constant usage of degree intensifiers such as so, totally, or super in teen talks emerges in daily conversation and reflects the change of social meaning (Núñez Pertejo & Palacios Martínez, 2014; Beltrama, 2016; Tagliamonte, 2016).
Other researchers using examples from languages such as German, Spanish, and Japanese have examined the issue of degree intensifiers mostly by way of a syntax-semantic or sociolinguistic approach. For example, Löbner (2012) examines the use of the degree intensifier sehr ‘very’ in German to observe the interplay with the adjectives which it modifies. Martínez López (2009) discovers that the degree intensifier mazo 'a lot, very good' is frequently adopted among teenagers in Madrid.
Brown and Mayra Cortés-Torres (2013: 18) examine the degree intensifiers bien
‘good’ and muy ‘very ’of Puerto Rican Spanish across different age groups and conclude that the use of these two degree intensifiers displays the “multifaceted and complex nature of language use patterns.” In Japanese, Tsujimura (2001) notices that one degree intensifier totemo ‘very’ interacts with the scalar structure.
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2.4.2 Studies of degree intensifiers in Mandarin Chinese and Taiwan Hakka
It is not easy to provide a clear-cut definition of the category of adverbs in Mandarin Chinese4 because of its lack of morphological markers. Generally
speaking, an adverb can modify a verb, an adjective or an adverb on the left position of the predicate in a clause. As for degree intensifiers, the categorization in Mandarin Chinese differs from the one often used in western language groups. Degree adverbs of Mandarin Chinese are commonly categorized into two major types: (i) absolute degree adverbs: denoting degree generally without a comparative meaning (e.g., 幾 ji3 , 很 hen3 , 怪 guai4, 特 te4 ) and (ii) relative degree adverbs: denoting degree by comparing (e.g., 一般 yi4ban1 , 最 zui4 , 更 geng4 ). Many researchers follow such categorization to analyze the data (Zhang, 2000). The degree intensifier, which is the main focus of the present study, appears to fall under the type of absolute degree adverbs.
The studies of intensifiers in Mandarin Chinese focus upon several particular intensifiers. The intensifier 很 hen3 has been frequently investigated in terms of its active changes in syntactic behaviors and meaning in context as shown by many studies (Lee, 2011; Chang, 2004; Chen, 2014). For example, Chang (2004) propose the degree-evaluative construction [Degree ADV + X] to investigate the intensifier 很 hen3. They believe that examining the holistic construction could explicate the representation of degree intensifier. They also adopt the “qualia structure” to interpret the X slot within the construction to illustrate its range of modification (e.g. 很陳水扁‧‧‧
hen3 Chen shui-bian ‘very Shui-shui-bian Chen like). Other intensifiers such as 非常 fei1chang2, 蠻 man2,
4 Adverbs in Mandarin Chinese can fall into two major categories: descriptive adverbs and functional adverbs. The former are lexical, open-class while the latter carry grammatical meanings such as degree, scope, time, frequency, logical relations, textual relations and the speaker’s stance (Biq & Huang, 2016).
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and 太 tai4 are also the commonly analyzed in Mandarin Chinese (Shang 2010, Hong
& Lim 2012, Chang 2013). In Shang’s study (2010), he further points out that the intensifier 太 tai correlates with the speaker’s subjectivity. When the intensifier 太 tai is adopted exceedingly, the meaning of the entire modification can turn a positive meaning into a negative one. Since the use of intensifiers reflects the attitudes held by a speaker in a discourse, researchers are interested in whether the intensifiers are sensitive to genre difference. Hong and Lim (2012) discovered that intensifiers are preferred differently in different genres. For example, the intensifier hen is found to be used overwhelmingly in the spoken register. Others such as 十分 shi2fen1 and 多麼 duo1(me) occur in press editorial / reviews and romance / general fictions separately.
As for Taiwan Hakka, the studies delving into degree intensifiers are still at the initial stage. Many researchers have utilized the categorization of the degree adverbs in Mandarin Chinese as a foundation to discuss the linguistic behaviors in Taiwan Hakka. Peng (2006) broadly investigates the use of degree adverbs in Taiwan Hakka and compared them with those in Mandarin Chinese. She does not further explore the differences in each subtype. Qi’s study (2007) gives a general picture of degree adverbs in Taiwan Hakka. Eighteen degree adverbs including intensifiers and diminishers are under scrutiny in terms of their syntactic behaviors and the
correlations with mental verbs, modals, and modified adjectives. Li (2008) focuses on Taiwan Hakka degree adverbs and provides an explanation on the quality, scope and classification of the Hakka degree adverbs. Yet, an analysis of Taiwan Hakka needs to be done to give a better understanding of the features of this language.
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In this chapter, a number of studies have demonstrated and epitomized many aspects of the degree intensifiers. In retrospect, some researchers are interested in how a degree intensifier develops from the lexical category toward the grammatical one. Both a diachronic approach and also a synchronic approach have been utilized to explore this issue. Several significant notions such as gradability, boundedness, and subjectivity have been introduced and further explained when dealing with degree intensifiers. The interplay between degree intensifiers and their modified elements is also important in the analysis (cf. Kennedy & McNally 1999, Paradis 1997, Athanasiadou 2007, Waksler 2012).
However, although there has been much discussion of degree intensifiers in cross-linguistic research, little attention has been paid to gathering together a set of degree intensifiers to see how they act during speech. Particularly, in spoken Taiwan Hakka a set of degree intensifiers is frequently employed by speakers and most of the degree intensifiers in spoken discourse are monosyllabic words. The ways by which each degree intensifier combines with its modified elements to give rise to differences in structures and meanings is worthy of attention. Whether the use of degree intensifiers correlates with above-mentioned parameters such as gradability, boundedness, and subjectivity is another crucial issue to explore. For example, Paradis (1997) argues that a bounded degree intensifier can only match bounded adjectives. Yet, in spoken Taiwan Hakka, a seemingly bounded adjective 慶 kiang3 ‘capable’ can be freely modified by the six unbounded degree intensifiers as in “F2:厥爸讀書盡慶‧‧
” (F2: His father is really good at studying.) and “F1:還該玉蘭姑斯當慶‧‧
了.” (F1: And Aunt Yulan is really capable in doing things.) In addition, the role that degree intensifiers play in a spoken corpus has not been fully investigated. Authentic usage is not confined to just propositional meaning, and the speaker’s construal of a state of affairs along with the