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The morphological expression of approximation: the emerging simil- construction in Italian

The morphological expression of approximation: the emerging simil- construction in Italian This paper contributes to the study of evaluative morphology by investigating an emerging morphological construction in Italian within the framework of Construction Morphology. The schema in question, which contains the string simil- (related to the adjective simile ‘similar’) plus a nominal or adjectival base, is analyzed as a newly-created construction that conveys a number of closely-related senses (i.e., fakeness, imitation, resemblance, vagueness, and kin-categorization) revolving around the functional domain of approximation, which has received much less attention than other domains within evaluative morphology. Beside discussing the formal, semantic and usage properties of simil- expressions on the basis of corpus data, we propose a constructional network that accounts for their behavior. Finally, we discuss the nature of simil- as an affixoid and explore its relationship with other competing (morphological and, more marginally, analytic) strategies in Italian. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Word Structure Edinburgh University Press

The morphological expression of approximation: the emerging simil- construction in Italian

Word Structure , Volume 13 (3): 32 – Nov 1, 2020

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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
1750-1245
eISSN
1755-2036
DOI
10.3366/word.2020.0176
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This paper contributes to the study of evaluative morphology by investigating an emerging morphological construction in Italian within the framework of Construction Morphology. The schema in question, which contains the string simil- (related to the adjective simile ‘similar’) plus a nominal or adjectival base, is analyzed as a newly-created construction that conveys a number of closely-related senses (i.e., fakeness, imitation, resemblance, vagueness, and kin-categorization) revolving around the functional domain of approximation, which has received much less attention than other domains within evaluative morphology. Beside discussing the formal, semantic and usage properties of simil- expressions on the basis of corpus data, we propose a constructional network that accounts for their behavior. Finally, we discuss the nature of simil- as an affixoid and explore its relationship with other competing (morphological and, more marginally, analytic) strategies in Italian.

Journal

Word StructureEdinburgh University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2020

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