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A Good Intensifier

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New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (JSAI-isAI 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9067))

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Abstract

We provide a semantic account of the Catalan ad-adjectival modifier ben ‘well’, which yields intensification by, we argue, positively evaluating a property ascription. Formally, this translates as applying the predicate good to the saying event available to any utterance. We treat the output of this modification as a Conventional Implicature (rather than at-issue content), which is responsible for its positive polarity behavior. Additionally, we exploit the semantic similarity between this intensifier use of well with other readings of well, including manner (well written) and degree (well acquainted), which we analyze as ‘manner-in-disguise’. In our proposal, they all predicate goodness of an event.

This research has been supported by project FFI2012-34170 (MINECO) and by the Ramón y Cajal program (RYC-2010-06070).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The data are much more complex than we are able to show due to space limitations, though. For instance, certain adjectives whose degree can be interpreted as good for a purpose are fine in conditionals (i).

    figure ak

    We have also identified differences of behavior in ben that seem to relate to the properties of the adjective it modifies, but they are not completely straightforward to us at this point. We leave this investigation for future research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ILLA-CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Elena Castroviejo

  2. CNRS/Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France

    Berit Gehrke

Authors
  1. Elena Castroviejo
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  2. Berit Gehrke
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Correspondence to Berit Gehrke .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

    Tsuyoshi Murata

  2. Ochanomizu University, Tokyo, Japan

    Koji Mineshima

  3. Department Information Science, Faculty of Science, Ochanomizu University , Tokyo, Japan

    Daisuke Bekki

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Castroviejo, E., Gehrke, B. (2015). A Good Intensifier. In: Murata, T., Mineshima, K., Bekki, D. (eds) New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. JSAI-isAI 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9067. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6_9

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-48118-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-48119-6

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