LINGUIST List 22.4737 Mon Nov 28 2011 Diss: General Ling/Morphology/Semantics: Fortin: 'The Morphology ...' Editor for this issue: Xiyan Wang <xiyanlinguistlist.org> New! Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:             http://multitree.linguistlist.org/ To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm. Directory         1.     Antonio Fortin , The Morphology and Semantics of Expressive Affixes Message 1: The Morphology and Semantics of Expressive Affixes Date: 16-Nov-2011 From: Antonio Fortin <a.fortinlmh.oxon.org> Subject: The Morphology and Semantics of Expressive Affixes E-mail this message to a friend Institution: University of Oxford Program: D.Phil. in Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2011 Author: Antonio Fortin Dissertation Title: The Morphology and Semantics of Expressive Affixes Dissertation URL: http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:88a23d7c-c229-49af-9fc9-2cb35fce9d54 Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics                             Morphology                             Pragmatics                             Semantics                             Typology Language Family(ies): Germanic                             Indo-European                             New English                             Niger-Congo                             Romance                             Slavic Subgroup Dissertation Director: Martin Maiden Christopher Potts Ash Asudeh Dissertation Abstract: 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 different languages (including Bantu, West Atlantic, Walman, Sanskrit, Germanic, 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), 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 expressive meaning of connotative affixes, and expressives generally, arises as they manipulate the middle coordinate, [b]I[/b], of expressive indices which, I propose, is inherently specified on all lexical items and canonically set to 'neutral.' I propose a new mechanism, [b]AFF[/b], which is an algebraic operation for manipulating [b]I[/b], and which accounts for the well-known, and seemingly 'contradictory,'range of meanings that expressive affixes can express. Whereas prior work assumes that expressive affixes are inherently polysemous, this approach derives their many attested meanings and functions (e.g., 'small,' 'young,' 'bad,' deprecation, appreciation, hypocorism, intensification/exactness, and attenuation/approximation) compositionally, from the interactions of their multidimensionality with the meanings of the roots to which they attach. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 28-Nov-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.