13th Meeting of Linguistic Centre, Bocconi Univeristy, Milan, 2004
Unauthorized translation from the original Italian. In this paper I intend to propose a descripti... more Unauthorized translation from the original Italian. In this paper I intend to propose a description of the main speech acts of economic discourse, that appear as nuclear phenomena of the text and can become important sources of complexity.
This article is meant to investigate affix ordering and combinability in Italian, with special re... more This article is meant to investigate affix ordering and combinability in Italian, with special reference to evaluative /alterative affixes. This is a central issue among morphologists and is now receiving a renewed interest world-wide, especially directed at class-changing derivative affixes in typologically different languages. Evaluative affixes, however, are classmaintaining and their combinatorics shows extra elements of relevance, namely internal variability and mutual commutability. Affixes cannot be combined arbitrarily, but there seem to be certain restrictions at work that favour some and disfavour other combinations. I argue that their mutual selection and ordering cannot be attributed to a dominant principle but are variably motivated and constrained by phonological, morphological, semantic and pragmatic properties of both affixes and bases, often operating together. Etymology and processes of lexicalization, as well as the semiotic principles of iconicity and indexicalit...
Competition in Inflection and Word-Formation, 2019
This contribution deals with competition (rivalry) between diminutive suffixations in (Austrian) ... more This contribution deals with competition (rivalry) between diminutive suffixations in (Austrian) German and Italian adult language and child speech and the motivation of differences in terms of productivity and degree of morphosemantic transparency/opacity of the respective diminutives. For this purpose productivity, availability and profitability are differentiated, a scale of morphosemantic transparency/opacity is established which ranges from full transparency (degree 1), over slight pragmatic restrictions (degree 2), to total opacity (unless in metalinguistic reflections: degree 9) and fake decompositionality (degree 10). The degrees of transparency/opacity differ for different suffixations, in German also between compound and simplex diminutives. Longitudinal studies of early child language show that child language is more transparent than adult language in types and tokens. In both there is competition between fully transparent suffixations (degree 1) without any pattern blocking or lexical blocking, because such diminutives are mainly formed and used for pragmatic reasons and never for the purpose of lexical enrichment. Since productivity, availability and profitability of diminutive formation is much higher in Italian than in German, there is much more competition between diminutive suffixations in Italian than in German adult language. This difference between the two languages is much less the case in early child language. Possible psycholinguistic consequences are mentioned in the outlook.
Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse, 2001
Morphopragmatics of diminutives and augmentatives On the priority of pragmatics over semantics Wo... more Morphopragmatics of diminutives and augmentatives On the priority of pragmatics over semantics Wolfgang U. Dressler and Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi Institut fur Sprachwissenschaft der Universitat Wien/ Dipartimento di Anglistica dell'Universita di Pisa i. A model of morphopragmatics ...
13th Meeting of Linguistic Centre, Bocconi Univeristy, Milan, 2004
Unauthorized translation from the original Italian. In this paper I intend to propose a descripti... more Unauthorized translation from the original Italian. In this paper I intend to propose a description of the main speech acts of economic discourse, that appear as nuclear phenomena of the text and can become important sources of complexity.
This article is meant to investigate affix ordering and combinability in Italian, with special re... more This article is meant to investigate affix ordering and combinability in Italian, with special reference to evaluative /alterative affixes. This is a central issue among morphologists and is now receiving a renewed interest world-wide, especially directed at class-changing derivative affixes in typologically different languages. Evaluative affixes, however, are classmaintaining and their combinatorics shows extra elements of relevance, namely internal variability and mutual commutability. Affixes cannot be combined arbitrarily, but there seem to be certain restrictions at work that favour some and disfavour other combinations. I argue that their mutual selection and ordering cannot be attributed to a dominant principle but are variably motivated and constrained by phonological, morphological, semantic and pragmatic properties of both affixes and bases, often operating together. Etymology and processes of lexicalization, as well as the semiotic principles of iconicity and indexicalit...
Competition in Inflection and Word-Formation, 2019
This contribution deals with competition (rivalry) between diminutive suffixations in (Austrian) ... more This contribution deals with competition (rivalry) between diminutive suffixations in (Austrian) German and Italian adult language and child speech and the motivation of differences in terms of productivity and degree of morphosemantic transparency/opacity of the respective diminutives. For this purpose productivity, availability and profitability are differentiated, a scale of morphosemantic transparency/opacity is established which ranges from full transparency (degree 1), over slight pragmatic restrictions (degree 2), to total opacity (unless in metalinguistic reflections: degree 9) and fake decompositionality (degree 10). The degrees of transparency/opacity differ for different suffixations, in German also between compound and simplex diminutives. Longitudinal studies of early child language show that child language is more transparent than adult language in types and tokens. In both there is competition between fully transparent suffixations (degree 1) without any pattern blocking or lexical blocking, because such diminutives are mainly formed and used for pragmatic reasons and never for the purpose of lexical enrichment. Since productivity, availability and profitability of diminutive formation is much higher in Italian than in German, there is much more competition between diminutive suffixations in Italian than in German adult language. This difference between the two languages is much less the case in early child language. Possible psycholinguistic consequences are mentioned in the outlook.
Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse, 2001
Morphopragmatics of diminutives and augmentatives On the priority of pragmatics over semantics Wo... more Morphopragmatics of diminutives and augmentatives On the priority of pragmatics over semantics Wolfgang U. Dressler and Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi Institut fur Sprachwissenschaft der Universitat Wien/ Dipartimento di Anglistica dell'Universita di Pisa i. A model of morphopragmatics ...
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