From degree adverbs to discourse markers: the case of maxime in Early Latin

Abstract

Degree modifiers may develop a semantic extension from content to function (Paradis 1997; Méndez Naya 2003; Athanasiadou 2007; Bartolotta 2022), gradually increasing their intensifying function toward more abstract ‘(inter)subjective’ meanings that are related to new grammatical and eventually procedural functions (cf. Traugott 1995; 2003; 2008). The distribution of all the occurrences of maxime in the corpus analyzed in this study, which includes Latin literary texts from roughly 240 BCE to the beginning of the first century BCE (cf. Penney 2011; Vincent 2016), shows that the relationship among different functions of this degree modifier in Early Latin is not simply a matter of synchronic polysemy inherent to the lexical root, but the result of a gradual diachronic change, triggered by the co-occurrence with specific syntactic-semantic and pragmatic contexts. In particular, although dead languages such as Latin cannot provide us with information about intonation and prosodic contours, data show a syntactic shift of maxime from the juxtaposed position, adjacent to the syntactic phrase it modifies, mostly when the adverb acts as an intensifier or a focalizer, to the left periphery of the sentence, mostly when the adverb acts as a discourse marker (DM). This scope increase goes along with semantic-pragmatic shifts from a lower (Representational) to a higher (Interpersonal) functional layer (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008), showing an increasing level of subjectification. More precisely, a first increase of subjectification can be observed from the intensifier/focalizer meaning, which is proper to the degree modifier, to the epistemic meaning, which maxime develops as a modal adverb by adding the speaker’s commitment to the truth-value of her/his proposition and taking its scope over the whole sentence. A further increase in terms of intersubjectification can be observed when maxime develops new illocutive and pragmatic functions proper to DMs (confirmative, adversative, and concessive), also marking the textual relationship between two discourse acts or the transition to a new discourse unit (move) at the interactional level. Since maxime shows an intermediate stage of grammaticalization at the proposition level before assuming a pragmatic function, pragmaticalization is here considered as not rigidly separated from grammaticalization, because the same lexical element may evolve toward new grammatical and pragmatic functions that coexist and influence each other within the ‘sentence-discourse continuum’ (cf. Diewald 2011; Degand & Simon-Vandenbergen 2011; Kroon 2011; Ghezzi 2014). References Athanasiadou, A. (2007). On the subjectivity of intensifiers. Language Sciences 29, 554–565. Degand, L. – Simon-Vandenbergen, A. M. (2011). Introduction: Grammaticalization and (inter)subjectification of discourse markers. Linguistics 49 (2), 287–294. Bartolotta, A. (2022). Intensificatori e soggettificazione in latino: sulla grammaticalizzazione di maxime. Studi e Saggi Linguistici 60 (1), 39–79. Diewald G. (2011). Pragmaticalization (defined) as grammaticalization of discourse functions. Linguistics 49 (2), 365–390. Ghezzi, C. (2014). The development of discourse and pragmatic markers. In: Ghezzi, C. and Molinelli, P. (Eds.), Discourse and Pragmatic Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 10–26. Hengeveld, K. & Mackenzie, J. L. (2008). Functional Discourse Grammar. A Typologically-based Theory of Language Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kroon, C. (2011). Latin Particles and the Grammar of Discourse. In: Clackson, J. (Ed.), A Companion to the Latin Language. Oxford: Blackwell, 176–195. Méndez-Naya, B. (2003). On intensifiers and grammaticalization: The case of swiþe. English Studies 84 (4), 372–391. Paradis, C. (1997). Degree Modifiers of Adjectives in Spoken British English. Lund: Lund University Press. Penney, J. (2011).