Intensifier Collocations with Parametric Nouns of Type PRICE

Prices go up, surge, jump, spike, skyrocket, go through the roof… Intensifier Collocations with Parametric Nouns of Type PRICE

Jasmina Milićević Department of French, Dalhousie University Halifax Canada [email protected]

speedP [of the vehicle]X is [70 miles per hour]α, 1 Abstract the quantityP [of oil]X is [30 tons]α, etc. The α value may not be explicitly quantified, The paper looks into the expression of inten- but characterized as being big or small (on sification with parametric nouns such as some scale): The price of gas is high. | The PRICE, COST, FEE, RATE, etc., focusing on col- speed of the vehicle is low. | The quantity of oil locations these nouns form with intensifying is huge. | Etc. adjectives, inchoative and causative intensi- I will be interested namely in the case where fying verbs and corresponding de-verbal nouns. Degrees of intensification possible α of an NPRICE, without being explicitly quanti- with these nouns are discussed, as well as fied, is qualified as high, or ‘big’ [STATIVE], or analytical vs. synthetic expression of intensi- rising—‘getting bigger’—[INCHOATIVE], or fication (a steep increase in prices ~ a spike else being caused to rise [CAUSATIVE]. These in prices). Sample lexicalization rules are cases are illustrated, respectively, in (1), (2) and proposed—namely, rules that map semantic (3); the examples come from Google searches representations of intensifier collocations (some have been slightly modified). headed by nouns of this type to their deep- syntactic representations. The theoretical (1) STATIVE: ‘⟦P of X being α,⟧ α is (very) big’, etc. framework of the paper is Meaning-Text lin- guistic theory. a. Post-paid service plans often charge steep 〈astronomical, prohibitive〉 over- 1 The Problem Stated age FEES. b. California divorce COST is high 〈whoop- The paper looks into the expression of intensifi- ing high, exorbitant〉. cation with parametric nouns such as PRICE, COST, FEE, RATE, etc., hereafter PRICE type (2) INCHOATIVE: ‘⟦P of X being α,⟧ α begins to be nouns, or {NPRICE} for short (see Table 1, Sec- bigger than αʹ by β (β being big)’ tion 3 below). More precisely, it describes col- a. Electricity COSTS went up 〈rose sharply, locations these nouns form with intensifying surged, skyrocketed in August. adjectives, as well as with inchoative and causa- 〉 tive intensifying verbs and corresponding de- b. Make sure your mortgage payments do verbal nouns. A cursory comparison is provided not increase1 if there is a rise 〈a major with antonymic, i.e., attenuating, expressions hike, a spike〉 in interest RATES. entering in collocations with {NPRICE}. A parametric noun (cf. Mel’čuk, 2013: 214) corresponds to (at least) a two-place predicate, 1 ‘P of X is α’, with X being the thing parameter- An NPRICE parametric noun typically has additional ized and α, the value of the parameter: the dependents; thus, the person who determines the price of something corresponds to an argument (in our priceP [of gas]X is [$1.85 per gallon]α, the terms, semantic actant) of PRICE; similarly, the person who incurs the cost of something corresponds to a semantic actant of COST; FEE has two additional semantic atants: the one who sets it and the one who pays it; and so on. These actants are not directly relevant for the present discussion.

145 Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Dependency Linguistics (Depling 2017), pages 145-153, Pisa, Italy, September 18-20 2017 (3) CAUSATIVE: ‘⟦P of X being α,⟧ α is caused to map semantic representations of the corre- begin to be bigger …’ sponding collocations to their deep-syntactic representations (Section 5); conclusion (Section a. Massive regulation of the health care in- 6). dustry causes the PRICES to increase1 〈to Data used in the paper come from a colloca- go way up, to go through the roof〉. tion database that Igor Mel’čuk kindly let me b. Higher mortgage rates spurred an in- use, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary crease 〈a jump, a surge〉 in home SALES. English [LDOCE, www.ldoce.online.com], and c. If you’re running for office you don’t the WWW. want to be known as the person who in- The collocation database consists of over 2 15,000 entries (entry count is per collocate, not creased2 〈hiked up〉 TAXES. per headword). The number of intensifier collo- The paper will focus on two phenomena, ob- cations is some 4,000; only a small proportion served in the examples above: of those are headed by {NPRICE}. For the pur- 1) Varying degrees of intensification ex- poses of this paper, collocations were added pressed by {NPRICE} collocates. and data complemented from the two other Thus, steep < astronomical; go up < skyrock- sources. et << go through the roof; a rise < a spike; Linguistic literature on intensification is ex- raise < hike up; and so on. tremely rich and even a cursory survey thereof 2) Synthetic vs. analytical expression of inten- is impossible here; some of the works I consult- sification in collocations headed by ed are Greenbaum (1970), Quirk et al. (1985: {NPRICE}. 589ff), Altemberg (1991), Kennedy & McNally High(er) degree of intensification can be ex- (2005), Cacchiani (2004), Gallardo (2008), pressed either by an NPRICE collocate itself or by Méndez-Naya, ed. (2008), Fleischhauer (2013), a separate lexeme (underlined in the examples Bertinetto & Civardi (2015) and van Der below), which gives rise to approximate equiva- Wouden & Foolen (2017). Within Meaning- lences: [cost is] exorbitant 〈whooping high〉; Text approach, various aspects of intensifica- [costs] skyrocket 〈rise sharply〉; hike up [prices] tion were treated, for instance, in Boguslavskij 〈cause a substantial rise [in prices]〉; etc. When & Iomdin (2000), Iordanskaja & Polguère intensification is expressed analytically, the (2005), Grossman & Tutin (2007) and collocate of an NPRICE is itself intensified, serv- Milićević & Timošenko (2014). ing as the base of the corresponding collocation of “second order”, as it were. 2 Meaning-Text Description of Intensi- These phenomena will be described from the fication: Magn and Related Lexical viewpoint of Meaning-Text linguistic theory Functions [MTT], in particular, its lexicological branch, Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology 2.1 Collocations and Lexical Functions (Mel’čuk, 2006), and its dependency-based se- TIn the MT framework, collocations are de- mantics and syntax (Mel’čuk, 2012, 2013 and scribed in terms of lexical functions [LFs]. 2015). Since LFs are quite well known, there is no The rest of the paper is structured as follows: need to introduce them here (the interested a brief review of formal means used in the reader may consult, for instance, Wanner, ed., Meaning-Text approach to describe intensifica- 1996 and Mel’čuk, 2015: 155-279) and we can tion: the lexical function Magn ‘big’/‘intense’ pass directly to the LFs relevant for the present and other related lexical functions (Section 2); discussion: Magn, Plus, IncepPredPlus, and an overview of {NPRICE} and intensifying ex- CausPredPlus. But first, two important facts, pressions with which they combine (Section 3); holding for all LFs, should be noted. degrees of intensification expressed by collo- • The meaning of an LF is actually a cluster of cates of {NPRICE} and their lexicographic treat- several related meanings, similar to the mean- ment (Section 4); a sketch of lexicalization ing of a grammeme, which also “stands for” a rules for analytical vs. synthetic expression of cluster of several meanings; for instance, the intensification with {NPRICE}, i.e., rules that grammeme ‘plural’ can mean ‘more than one’ [three books], ‘a kind of’ [three cheeses], ‘a big 2 INCREASE1 ‘become bigger’ is an intransitive verb, and quantity of’ [the sands of the desert], and so on. INCREASE2 the corresponding causative verb. This explains the recourse to several glosses

146 indicating the meaning of some LFs, such as Degrees of intensification are indicated by Magn (see immediately below). the symbols “<” (more) and “<<” (much more). • Elements of the value that an LF returns for (Another way to specify intensification degrees a given headword are not perfectly synonymous is to use degree Roman superscripts; see Sec- (this may be the case even if we consider just tion 4.) one particular meaning of the LF, as mentioned Superscripted semantic features, such as temp in the preceding paragraph); in fact, sometimes and quant above, identify the dimension of the they display obvious semantic differences, meaning of the headword that is being intensi-

which in case of intensifiers may go beyond fied. Subscripted Arabic numerals, as in Magn2, varying degrees of intensification. Thus, for indicate the semantic actant of the headword on instance, [a] spike [in prices] is not only more which the intensification bears. (In this particu- intense than [a] rise but also quicker, [prices] lar case, these are the things for which the go through the roof means that they rise very spending takes place; cf. military 〈defense, high from an already high starting level, and so capital〉 spending). on (for more on this, see Section 3). However, Non-standard components, such as impossible such differences can be ignored in contexts to control, capture the additional meaning car- where precision and attention to detail are not ried by a given collocate with respect to the paramount, i.e., in most everyday discourse sit- basic meaning of the relevant LF; we will see uations. more of these in Section 3. The last example features a configuration of 2.2 Lexical Functions Magn and Plus LFs, made up of a complex LF AntiBon ‘not The LF Magn is an adjectival/adverbial modifier good according to the Speaker’, and the already

whose meaning is ‘intense(ly)’, ‘big’, ‘much’/ seen Magn2. Intensifying LFs often enter into ‘many’. such configurations. For some examples of the Here are examples of Magn type collocations LF AntiMagn, see Table 2 in Section 3. as they would appear in an English Explanatory Like Magn, the LF Plus is a quantitative Combinatorial Dictionary [ECD] (where collo- modifier, a comparison marker meaning ‘to a cates are listed in the entries of their head- greater extent’; its antonym is Minus ‘to a less- words): er extent’. Both appear only in complex LFs, either with Magn (e.g., PlusMagn(ALERT): NUMBER(N) ‘quantity’ heightened; PlusMagn(CONCERN): growing; Magn: large, sizeable, //myriad, << huge, MinusMagn(DISCIPLINE): failing) or with Incep << record-breaking, << unprecedented, and Pred (see immediately below). << //gazillion 2.3 Lexical Functions IncepPredPlus and FIGURE(N) ‘number’ CausPredPlus Magn: high, << huge, << staggering These are complex verbal LFs, made up of the SHORTAGE following simple LFs: the verb Pred ‘to.be’, the Magn: severe, acute already seen comparison marker Plus ‘more’, Magntemp: chronic and the verb Incep ‘begin’, respectively Caus INFLATION ‘to.cause’. Thus, IncepPredPlus means ‘begin Magnquant: widespread, rampant to be bigger (than before/than something else impossible to control Magn: << runaway by some value)’ and IncepPredPlus—‘cause

COST(N) something [to begin] to be bigger (than be- Magn: high, significant, < huge, << astronomi- fore/than something else by some value)’. For cal, << exorbitant instance:

SPENDING(N) NUMBER(N) ‘quantity’

Magn2: strong IncepPredPlus: grow

[AntiBon+Magn2]: lavish quickly IncepPredPlus: << explode The symbol “//” precedes a fused element of COST(N) the value of an LF, expressing together, i.e., in IncepPredPlus: go up, rise, increase1 one word, the meaning of the headword and the very quickly IncepPredPlus: << (sky)rocket intensification; thus, myriad means ‘huge num- CausPredPlus: drive up [ART ~], push [ART ~] ber’. up/higher

147 3 Caus2PredPlus: raise [ART ~] undergo ellipsis: Inflation is high; Mortgage went up; The sales increased1. Conversely, For some examples of the antonyms of these there are instances where these nouns are used two LFs, the attenuators IncepPredMinus and alone, such as The rate(s) increased1; The fig- CausPredMinus, see Tables 4 & 5 below. ures/numbers are up; etc.4 3 Intensification with PRICE-type Par- 3.2 Intensifiers of {NPRICE} ametric Nouns Tables 2-5 show the most common intensifying {NPRICE} have a “natural” and very rich co-oc- collocates of {NPRICE}; attenuating collocates currence with expressions of intensification are indicated as well, for comparison. (this is why they have been selected for this In the tables, the non-standard components of study). The nouns are presented first, and then an LF meaning (abruptly & quickly, from a their intensifying (and some of attenuating) col- high level, impossible to control, etc.) pre- locates. cede the elements of LF value which express them; these components are based on LDOCE’s 3.1 The Domain of {NPRICE} definitions of the corresponding lexical units. Here are some nouns belonging to the set Intensification levels are tentatively indicated as {NPRICE}: Degree I and Degree II/III. amount deficit interest rate Magn ‘big’ budget expense(s) investment sales Degree I Degree II/III business fare level spending high; steep astronomical; exorbitant; charge(s) fee mortgage stock(s) making Oper1 impossible prohibitive; cost(s) figure number tax(es) impossible to control runaway; stag- debt inflation price(s) wage(s) gering Plus ‘to a greater extent’ Table 1. Some members of {NPRICE} Degree I Degree II/III The bolded nouns are the core items of the growing galloping set; the co-occurrence data supplied below ap- AntiMagn ‘small’ plies in the first place to these nouns and is Degree I Degree II/III shared to a somewhat lesser extent, albeit quite low < modest negligible robustly, with the remaining items (for more on Minus ‘to a smaller extent’ Degree I Degree II/III this, and for some frequency data, see the end falling dwindling of this section). Table 2. Degree adjectives combining with {NPRICE} Other, semantically more distant nouns such as employment, enrolment, turnout, etc., share Two adjectival modifiers non-specific to {N }, colloq. whooping ‘very large [physical- some co-occurrence with {NPRICE}. PRICE Some of the nouns in Table 1 are used (in the ly]’ and colloq. jaw-dropping ‘very impressive or surprising’ are indiscriminately used as high- relevant sense) only in the plural (e.g. sales) or 5 are much more frequently used in the plural er-level intensifiers or attenuators. (those with the plural marker in parentheses). In some cases, there is a meaning difference be- tween the plural and the singular form (i.e., they represent two different lexemes); for instance, costs ‘expenses’ vs. cost = ‘price’. The underscored nouns can combine with some other nouns from the set, as in Inflation levels are high; Mortgage rates went up; The amount of sales increased1; etc., but they easily 4 These are of course two different types of ellipsis. The first ellipsis type is seen also in the expressions such 3 Examples for the last two LFs: Increasing fuel prices as The (exchange) rate of the US dollar fell/rose against the Japanese Yen. also drive up the cost of food (the Cause is external, 5 i.e., not an actant of the headword, so Caus bears no Examples: Nike debuts a pair of sunglasses at the Rio actantial subscripts); Apple quietly raised the cost of Olympics for a jaw-dropping cost of $1,200 [by any- some of its machines (the Causer is internal, coincid- one’s standard, this must be ‘very high’]. | The price is ing with the SemA 2 of the headword, i.e., the person jaw-dropping, 9 dollars per bottle. [For quality wine, who determines the cost, which is shown by the actan- this means ‘very low’.] | Yet another whopping pay tial superscript accompanying Caus). raise [‘very big’, or, ironically, ‘very small’].

148 IncepPredPlus ‘become +’ costs (40,700 hits), significantly less so with Degree I Degree II/III prices (6,210) and infrequently with fees creep go through the gradually to a very high level (1,230). Similarly, crashed was found co- up; go up; roof; jump, surge, shoot abruptly occurring most often with prices (61,100 hits), grow; in- up, spike, zoom; abruptly & quickly more rarely with stock (19,100), and hardly ev- crease1; rise balloon, escalate, explode; quickly, soar; er with fees (349). On the other hand, some to a high level quickly, by a nouns have more specific collocates, not used large amount (sky)rocket IncepPredMinus ‘become –’ with other nouns.

Degree I Degree II/III Degree I intensity collocates seem to fit vir- gradually abruptly, to a very low level crash; tually all nouns from {NPRICE}, those of Degree cool; de- gradually, to a very low level dwindle; II/III may have a less close fit with some of the crease; abruptly, by a large amount plummet, nouns. for a short plunge, tumble Table 6 features common intensifiers of time dip; drop; fall; some (for the most part) Degree I intensifying go down and attenuating collocates of {NPRICE}. Table 3. Inchoative degree-verbs combining with {NPRICE} Magn of Magn/AntiMagn CausPredPlus ‘cause to become +’ Degree I Degree II/III Degree I Degree II/III very extremely, colloq. whoop- boost; drive up; increase2; push deliberately hike up/higher; put up; raise; send up up, ramp up; ing send sky- Magn of IncepPredPlus/Minus high/soaring, Degree I Degree II/III a lot; considerably; markedly; send through abruptly, by a large significantly; sharply; steeply; the roof amount dramati- substantially; colloq. way cally CausPredMinus ‘cause to become –’ Magn of S IncepPredPlus/Minus Degree I Degree II/III 0 cut; drive down; push slash Degree I Degree II/III considerable; major; sharp; down/lower; reduce; send down abrupt, by a large steep; substantial amount dramatic Table 4. Causative degree-verbs combining with{NPRICE} Table 6. Intensifiers of {NPRICE} degree collocates S0IncepPredPlus Degree I Degree II/III The same intensifiers combine with high- growth; in- jump(N); escalation; explosion; and low degree expressing collocates of crease(N); spike(N); surge(N) {NPRICE}; for instance, very 〈extremely, whoop- rise(N) ing〉 low/high prices; Stocks rose/fell sharply S0IncepPredMinus Degree I Degree II/III 〈considerably, dramatically〉; and so on. drop(N); dip(N) crash(N) To sum up, while some interesting generali-

S0CausPredPlus zations over collocates of {NPRICE} are possible, Degree I Degree II/III it is still necessary to describe the co-occur- raise(N) hike(N); rump-up rence for each noun individually. More on this S0CausPredMinus Degree I Degree II/III will be said in Conclusion. cut(N); re- duction 4 Degrees of Intensification with Table 5. Degree nouns combining with {NPRICE} PRICE-type Parametric Nouns

Many collocates (both intensifiers and atten- As mentioned previously, ECD lexicogra- uators) are metaphorically derived from inde- phers use three degrees of intensification with pendent lexical units denoting basic spatial po- Magn type LFs: ‘intense’, ‘very intense, and sitions (up/down) or changes thereof (rise/fall, ‘very very intense’. Some data from the collo- jump/dip; hike up/push down), as well as vio- cation database I consulted are presented in Ta- lent physical phenomena (explosion/crash). ble 7, next page. As mentioned at the beginning of this sec- The 3-way distinction is based on linguistic tion, most of the collocates listed in Tables 2-5 intuition and has not been specifically theorized combine with the nouns in Table 1, but some of within this framework. them fit some nouns better than others. For ex- In the linguistic literature on intensification, ample, in a cursory WWW search, ballooned was some authors use three degrees (e.g., Cacchiani, most frequently found in combination with 2004), as above, and others, two: relative and

149 high (e.g., Gallardo, 2009).6 However, the theo- conceptual correlates for intensification degrees retical bases of or linguistic evidence for these admitted by {NPRICE}. distinctions are hardly ever discussed. Let us assume the following Semantic Struc- ture [SemS] for the LF IncepPredPlus (on se- Magn Magn < Magn << mantic representations in MTT, see, for in- DANGER big, grave, mortal stance, Mel’čuk, 2012: 161-394): great DIFFER- big, funda- crucial, ENCE mental, sig- enor- ‘begin’ ‘P’ nificant, mous, 1 2 ‘α’ sharp, stark, huge, key 1 ‘bigger’ 1 striking, vast 3 DIFFER- basically, complete- 2 ‘β’ ENT distinctly, ly, entire- ‘X’ ‘αʹ’ dramatically, ly, //poles markedly, apart, rad- Figure 1. SemS of the LF IncepPredPlus starkly, strik- ically, ingly totally NB: The semanteme configuration in the shaded area of Figure 1 is not the part of the meaning of the LF In- EPIDEM- major, vast sweeping cepPredPlus: it represents the context (or conditions) IC(N) EVI- quant ample, conclu- in which the configuration ‘begin being bigger …’ DENCE clear, cogent, sive, in- can be implemented, at the deep-syntactic level, by the LF in question. (This context is actually a gener- compelling, contro- alized SemS of the corresponding collocation base convincing, vertible, with its SemA 1.) See the lexicalization rules in Fig- dramatic, irrefuta- ure 3. quant moun- ble tainous, A note on the actants of the semanteme ‘big- strong, unam- ger’ is in order: in ‘α is bigger than αʹ by β, ‘α’ biguous is the value [of something] that is being com- FACT True well- irrefuta- pared with ‘αʹ’, which is either ‘α’ at some pre- establish- ble vious time point or the value of another pa- ed, well- rameter; the meaning ‘β’ is obvious—the value known representing the difference between ‘α’ and

PAIN keen, temp- killer- excruciat- ‘αʹ’. Thus, Prices go up means ‘prices [of nagging, ing, ex- something] are α, α being bigger than αʹ [= α searing, se- treme, before the change] by β’, and Prices of wheat vere, sharp, gut- are higher than prices of barley means ‘prices temp unrelent- wrench- of wheat are α, α being bigger than αʹ, prices of ing ing barley, by β’. SPEED(N) High breath- break- taking, neck Some possible instantiations of the SemS in lightning Figure 1 follow: TIRED //exhausted, to complete- (4) a. Between 1850 and 1854 pricesP of wheatX the bone, very, ly, ex- jumped by 60% [β]. //washed out tremely TOLL heavy devastat- b. The priceP of natural gasX rose above $5 ing per mcf [α]. Magn Table 7. Degrees of in an ECD database (excerpts) c. GasolineX pricesP will increase1 by 10% In domains such as ours, degrees of intensifi- [β], to 1.65 euros per liter [α]. cation could be determined rather objectively, d. Crude oilX pricesP spiked from $13 [αʹ] to by reference to numerical values of the parame- roughly $34 per barrel [α], i.e., by some ters in question. That is, we could try and find 38% [β]. As we can see, specific lexicalizations of the meaning of IncepPredPlus correlate with actu- 6 Remember that we are talking about intensifiers in col- al numerical values of the parameter P. There- locations, not more or less free intensifiers that may fore, we could posit that higher degree inchoa- present more degrees: a bit/somewhat < enough/rather tive verbs are used if the value of β exceeds a < quite/pretty/really < absolutely/extremely/totally.

150 certain percentage point or if α is bigger than αʹ 5 Sample Lexicalization Rules for In- by certain amount, and so on. The same reason- tensifiers of PRICE-type Parametric ing could be used to determine whether a two- Nouns or three-degree distinction is necessary for de- grees of intensification. As indicated in Section 1, higher degree of in- This kind of precision would be in order if tensification with {NPRICE} nouns can be ex- we were to elaborate entries for a terminologi- pressed synthetically, within an NPRICE collo- cal database or a lexicon to be used in some cate, or analytically, by a separate lexical unit NLP applications. For our purposes, however, it forming a collocation with the NPRICE collocate is enough to determine the relative values of the as the headword; this gives rise to equivalences parameter. such as these: Speaking about linguistic evidence, it is (5) a. Alberta crop crisis sent wheat PRICES clearly there to corroborate a two-degree dis- through the roof II. tinction; cf., for instance, the incompatibility of CausPredPlus b. Alberta crop crisis caused wheat higher degree nouns and verbs with slight(ly)/a Caus II bit (a slight increase/*surge; costs rose/*spiked PRICES to shoot upIncepPredPlus . slightly) or the incompatibility of higher degree c. Alberta crop crisis spurredCaus a sharp- I adjectives with VERY/A LOT (very high 〈steep〉 Magn increase1S0IncepPredPlus in wheat vs. very *staggering). However, the evidence is PRICES. II hard to come by when it comes to distinguish- d. Wheat PRICES spikedIncepPredPlus 〈roseIn- Degrees II III I I I ing between (the putative) and . cepPredPlus steeplyMagn , gotIncep muchMagn For the time being, I will refrain from mak- higher in the wake of Alber- Plus〉 ˹ ˺Adv2Caus ing too fine distinctions and will use two de- ta crop crisis. grees of intensification: high, and very high, which will be indicated by degree superscripts These sentences are mutual paraphrases: they accompanying the relevant LFs: MagnI vs. Mag- express the same meaning—‘Alberta crop crisis nII, IncepPredPlusI vs. IncepPredPlusII, and caused wheat prices to begin being much big- CausPredPlusI vs. CausPredPlusII. (The same ger’—but they do so more and more analytical- superscripts can be used with attenuating LFs).7 ly, as it were, as we go from (5a) to (5d). Thus, the SemS in Figure 1 above is actually In MTT framework, there are two ways to good for IncepPredPlusI, and that of Incep- produce these sentences: PredPlusII looks like this: 1) by alternative lexicalizations from their common semantic structure, through applica- ‘begin’ ‘P’ tion of semantic-to-deep syntax mapping rules 1 (e.g., Mel’čuk, 2013: 188-259); 2 ‘α’ ‘bigger’ 1 1 2) by meaning-preserving reformulations of 3 2 ‘β’ the deep-syntactic structure of any of these sen- tences, through application of deep-syntactic ‘X’ 1 ‘αʹ’ ‘big’ equivalence, or paraphrasing, rules (e.g., Mel’čuk, 2013: 137-188). Figure 2. SemS of the LF IncepPredPlusII In what follows, I will illustrate the first rule type. This is a generalized representation, captur- Sample rules for synthetic vs. analytic im- ing the core meaning of this LF; in actual fact, plementation of inchoative high intensity verbs either α or αʹ (or both) can also be characterized are given in Figure 3, next page. (Some lexical- as ‘big’, which will trigger specific lexicaliza- ization rules for the FL Magn can be found in tions: if α is ‘big’ (plus the non-standard com- Mel’čuk 2013: 213-214.) ponent ‘quickly’ is present), then soar is an ap- These rules are needed (among others) to propriate lexicalization, if both α and αʹ are big, produce paraphrases such as those in example ˹go through the roof˺ is OK, and so on. (5d) above. Similar lexicalization rules can be written for other intensifying (and attenuating) LFs. 7 While the Roman superscript notation is sporadically found (in the MTT literature) with Magn type LFs, it is standardly used with realization LFs to indicate “de- grees” of realization.

151 6 Conclusion cographic treatment within the Meaning-Text paradigm. The paper discussed intensifier collocations of Sample lexicalization rules for intensifier parametric nouns of type PRICE, in particular collocation headed by members of {NPRICE} degrees of intensification and analytical vs. syn- were proposed, taking into account the possibil- thetic expression of intensification possible ity of analytical and synthetic expression of in- with these nouns. tensification, i.e., by a separate lexeme, a collo- While all the nouns considered share to a cate of an {NPRICE} intensifier (a steep rise in considerable extent the co-occurrence with in- PRICES 〈TAXES, FEES〉; SALES 〈STOCKS〉 rose tensifiers—in particular Degree I intensifiers, dramatically), or within the intensifier itself (a they also have their own, idiosyncratic, collo- hike in PRICES 〈TAXES, FEES〉; SALES 〈STOCKS〉 cates, a finding consistent with the collocation went through the roof). phenomenon in general. Thus, a generalized Attenuating collocates of {NPRICE} were con- lexicographic entry for the nouns belonging to sidered in a cursory way, insofar as they pro- {NPRICE} can be envisaged, but this does not vided a basis for comparison with the intensify- obviate the need for recording intensifier collo- ing collocates. Preliminary findings point to cations for each member of the set, in their re- two differences: attenuators are not as numer- spective lexicographic entries. ous as intensifiers, and they are even less prone Two degrees of intensification, high and very to a three-degree distinction of intensity. high, were suggested for these nouns’ collo- cates, along with the corresponding formal lexi-

II IncepPredPlus

I

L(‘P’) ⇔ I L(‘X’) ‘begin’ ‘P’ IncepPredPlusI 1 2 ‘α’ 1 ‘bigger’ ATTR 1 I 3 2 ‘β’ I ⇔ L(‘P’) Magn ‘X’ 1 I ‘αʹ’ ‘big’ L(‘X’)

IncepPred II Plus I L(‘P’) ⇔ ATTR I

L(‘X’) I Magn

Figure 3. Lexicalization rules for the FL IncepPredPlusII

Future work could focus on determining, analytical vs. synthetic expression of intensifi- based on a larger corpus of data, if two degrees cation with the nouns of this type. Plus, of of intensification are enough to cover all the course, a closer look at attenuation, along the cases of intensification (as tentatively suggested same lines. here) or, on the contrary, a three-degree distinc- tion is necessary. Other topic to explore include Acknowledgments factors determining the choice of intensifier collocates of PRICE type nouns (e.g., how high a I am grateful to Igor Mel’čuk for generously rise in prices should be in order for it be called letting me use his database of lexical functions a spike, etc.), as well as preference rules for for English, as well as for his most helpful re-

152 marks on a pre-final version of this paper. Mel’čuk, Igor. 2012, 2013, 2015. Semantics. From Thanks are also due to three anonymous re- Meaning to Text, vols 1-3. John Benjamins, Am- viewers, whose comments allowed me to im- sterdam/Philadelphia. prove some aspects of the paper. Mel’čuk, Igor. 2006. Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionary. In Sica, G., ed., Open Problems in References Linguistics and Lexicography. Polimetrica, Mon- za, p. 225–355. Altemberg, Bengt. 1991. Amplifier Collocations in Spoken English. In Johanson, S. & Stenström, A.- Méndez-Naya, Bélen, ed. 2008. Intensifiers, Special B., eds, English Computer Corpora. Selected Pa- Issue of English Language and Linguistics, 12(2). pers and Research Guide, Mouton de Gruyter, Milićević, Jasmina & Timošenko, Svetlana. 2014. Berlin/New York, p. 127-149. Towards a Fine-grained Description of Intensify- Bertinetto, Pier Marco & Civardi, Eugenio. 2015. ing Adjectives for Text Processing. Computation- The Semantics of Degree Verbs and the Telicity al Linguistics and Intellectual Technologies. Pro- Issue. Borealis: An International Journal of His- ceedings of the Annual International Conference panic Linguistics, 4(1): 57-77. on Computational Linguistics, DIALOG 2014, p. 427-440. Boguslavskij, Igor & Iomdin, Leonid. 2000. Seman- tika medlennosti [The Semantics of Slowness]. Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geof- Slovo v tekste i v slovare. Sbornik stat’ej k 70- frey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive letiju akademika Ju. D. Apresjana. Jazyki russkoj Grammar of the English Language. Longman, kul’tury, Moskva, p. 52-60. London. Cacchiani, Silvia, 2004. Towards a Model for Inves- Van Der Wouden, Ton & Foolen, Ad. 2017. A Most tigating Predicate-Intensifier Collocations. Pro- Serious and Extraordinary Problem. Intensifica- ceedings of EURALEX 2004, p. 943-947. tion of Adjectives in Dutch, German, and English. Leuvense Bijdragen, 101: 82-100. Fleischhauer, Jens. 2013. Interaction of Telicity and Degree Gradation in Change of State Verbs. In Wanner, Leo, ed. 1996. Lexical Functions in Lexi- Arsenijević, B., Gehrke, B. & Marín, R., eds, cography and Natural Language Processing. Studies in the Composition and Decomposition of Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia. Event Predicates. Springer, Dordrecht, p. 125- 152. Gallardo, Catherine. 2009. L’intensification dans les expressions figées françaises à coordination in- terne. Lingvisticæ Investigationes, 32(2): 238- 252. Greenbaum, Sidney. 1970. Verb-Intensifier Colloca- tions in English: An Experimental Approach. Mouton, The Hague/Paris. Grossmann, Francis & Tutin, Agnès. 2007. Motiva- tion of Lexical Functions in Collocations: The Case of Intensifiers Denoting ‘Joy’. In Wanner, Leo, ed., Selected Lexical and Grammatical Is- sues in the Meaning-Text Theory. In Honour of Igor Mel’čuk. Benjamins, Amster- dam/Philadelphia, p. 140-165. Iordanskaja, Lidija & Polguère, Alain. 2005. Hook- ing up Syntagmatic Lexical Functions to Lexico- graphic Definitions. In Apresjan, Ju. & Iomdin, L., eds, East-West Encounter: Second Interna- tional Conference on Meaning-Text Theory. Slav- ic Culture Languages Publishing House, Moscow, p. 176-186. Kennedy, Christopher & McNally, Louise. 2005. Scale Structure, Degree Modification, and the Semantics of Gradable Predicates. Language, 81, p. 345–381.

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