%0 Journal Article
%A Israel, Michael
%+ Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society
%T Literally speaking : 
%G eng
%U https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0010-0778-3
%F EDOC: 21695
%F ISI: 000174592500005
%R 10.1016/S0378-2166(01)00048-0
%7 2002-06-10
%D 2002
%* Review method: peer-reviewed
%X Modern uses of the word literally are surveyed, and the solecistic misuse of this word as an expression of speaker commitment is shown to be a natural semantic extension of its basic metalinguistic meaning. The development appears to be typical of a large class of intensifiers, though it is argued that literally itself is only in the early stages of such an evolution. Aspects of this development are observed to run counter to well-known tendencies for meaning change to involve subjectification, and it is suggested that subjectification itself may be a special case of the ways in which originally pragmatic meanings can become conventionalized properties of a form's lexical semantics. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
%K literal meaning, semantic change, pragmatic strengthening, degree modifers, intensifiers, subjectivity and subjectification
%J Journal of Pragmatics
%O J. Pragmat.
%V 34
%N 4
%& 423
%P 423 - 432
%@ 0378-2166