Expressive vocatives

This chapter develops a syntactic and semantic analysis of German expressive vocatives (eVocs), which consists of a second person pronoun and an expressive nominal part. It documents the special properties of eVocs and identifies three structural subtypes (autonomous, parenthetical, integrated). It is shown that none of the previous semantic analysis of vocatives can deal with eVocs. This chapter develops a new semantic approach according to which integrated eVocs are the most basic ones, consisting of a pronoun and expressive modification. Parenthetical and autonomous eVocs are then extensions of the integrated version, just adding an activational vocative function and an exclamational component respectively. Furthermore, it is argued that syntactically, eVocs consist of a D-element—the pronoun—which has to select for an expressive complement. The upshot of this chapter for the hypothesis of expressive syntax is that expressivity as a syntactic feature can be selected for by other expressions.

Syntax, features, and agreement

This chapter provides the syntactic background and deals with syntax, features, and agreement in order to spell out the hypothesis of expressive syntax more precisely. It focuses on the notion of syntactic features and the operation of agreement, which will be the syntactic operation that is most crucial for the analyses in the case studies. Starting with the original conception, the chapter presents more recent approaches to agreement, which drop the biconditional between (un)interpretability and (un)valuedness, before discussing the direction of agreement and siding with the view that agreement looks upwards. Moreover, it is assumed that only a complementizer phrase is a boundary for agreement, while a determiner phraseis not. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some approaches that attempt to represent certain aspects of the context in syntax and investigate if they can be put to use for the following case studies.

Expressive adjectives

This chapter provides an analysis of the syntactic constraints in the semantic interpretation of expressive adjectives (EAs). This chapter shows that EAs differ in many respects from ordinary adjectives. The most interesting property is what is called argument extension: EAs can semantically apply to a larger constituent. For instance, an EA in object position may express an attitude toward the entire proposition. This chapter shows that a pure pragmatic approach, according to which EAs can freely pick their argument, is too liberal and that there are syntactic constraints on where an EA can be interpreted. These constraints can be accounted for by upwards agreement, if the place where the adjective is interpreted carries an interpretable expressivity feature, while the EA itself comes with an uninterpretable one. The upshot of this chapter for the hypothesis of expressive syntax is that expressivity as a syntactic feature can be involved in agreement.

Looking back and looking ahead

The final chapter is concerned with looking back and looking ahead. It concludes with a broad view of the topics dealt with in this book and summarizes the main findings: expressivity can partake in agreement, expressivity can trigger movement, and expressivity can be selected for. The chapter briefly predicts what the main conclusion—that expressivity is represented in syntax—may mean for existing and future research on expressives and the syntax-semantics interface, before giving some concrete suggestions for future directions of investigations including reflections on expressive adjectives, expressivity and its relation to determiners, cross-linguistic variation, and diachronic development and acquisition.

Introduction

The distinction between descriptive and expressive language is introduced in this chapter, and the main hypothesis of this book—the thesis of expressive syntax—is also introduced, according to which expressivity is a syntactic feature on a par with other features like tense or gender. While the descriptive function involves the relation of the linguistic sign to objects or state of affairs in the extra-linguistic world, the expressive function involve the relation between the sign to the speaker and what it conveys about him/her. The chapter also provides the basic idea of use-conditional semantics and an overview of the individual chapters, as well as guidance to readers on how to read this book, depending on whether they are semanticists, syntacticians, students, or just interested in the data on expressives.

Expressive intensifier

Expressive intensifiers (EIs) are a special class of degree expressions found in informal variants of German. They are distinguished from ordinary degree intensifiers like ‘very’ by several special semantic and syntactic properties. Most importantly EIs can appear in what is called the external degree modification construction (EDCs), in which the EI precedes the determiner, but still intensifies an adjective or noun inside the determiner phrase. The main analysis of this EDC is that they are derived via movement, which in turn is triggered by an uninterpretable expressivity feature in D, which attracts the intensifier in order to establish an agreement relation. This also provides a possibility to analyse the form-meaning mismatches that can be observed with EDCs. The upshot of this chapter for the hypothesis of expressive syntax is that expressivity as a syntactic feature can trigger movement.

The expressive function of language

This chapter offers a very brief historical perspective on the notion of expressivity and introduces the general idea of hybrid semantics, before presenting various instances of expressions fulfilling the expressive language function, and the tools for their semantic analysis. The three main phenomena of this book will be introduced (expressive adjectives, expressive intensifiers, and expressive vocatives) and the specific semantic properties of expressive meaning will be discussed. The second half of the chapter provides an overview of recent formal approaches to expressivity and sketches the main ideas of a formal semantic approach to expressive meaning that is based on the idea of a multidimensional system, before presenting the specific system that will be used for the purposes of the case studies in this book.