Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.2018, Qupperneq 72

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summary
‘On the nature of bound intensifiers in Icelandic’
Keywords: derivation, compounding, intensifiers, prefixoids, grammaticalization
This paper discusses the nature and role of bound intensifiers such as arfa-, fanta-, pöddu-,
ösku-, stál- and svín- in Icelandic word formation. These intensifiers exist alongside respec-
tive independent words, e.g. arfi (gen. arfa) ‘weed’, fantur (gen.pl. fanta) ‘thug’, padda
(gen. pöddu) ‘insect’, aska (gen. ösku) ‘ash’, stál ‘steel’ and svín ‘pig’, but differ from them
both grammatically and semantically. Grammatically, bound intensifiers are used syste-
matically to emphazise the meaning of the adjective they occur in, and their form is either
the bare stem, like stál- and svín-, or the genitive, like arfa-, fanta-, pöddu- and ösku-.
Although intensifiers frequently occur as part of adjectives, they can also occur in nouns
and verbs, e.g. dúndur-fyllerí (lit. ‘explosive-bender’) ‘crazy bender’ and svín-beygja (lit. ‘(to)
pig-bend’) ‘(to) crush (someone)’. In the paper, the intensifiers are compared to gradation
forms but without any clear results although there is some resemblance in function.
Semantically, bound intensifiers can in most cases be replaced by intensifying adverbs like
mjög ‘very’ and rosalega ‘extremely’. The semantic relation between the intensifier and the
respective lexical form is, however, somewhat complex. Tests, that were applied, show
that some intensifiers have a clear semantic relation to the corresponding lexical item, and
that others are semantically bleached. This makes it tempting to analyze intensifiers as pre-
fixoids, i.e. grammaticalized forms that exist alongside full lexical items.
Þorsteinn G. Indriðason
Institutt for lingvistiske, litterære og estetiske studier
Universitetet i Bergen
Sydnesplassen 7
N-5007 Bergen, NORGE
torsteinn.indridason@uib.no
Þorsteinn G. Indriðason72