"Cuantificación e intensificación: algunas notas sobre re e ité en el español del Cono Sur"

KORNFELD, LAURA

Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics

Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics

Lugar: Minnesotta; Año: 2012 vol. 5 p. 71 - 102

1939-0238

It is the purpose of this paper to analyse the grammatical behaviour of two elements of Southern Cone Spanish described in the relevant literature as affixes: re and ité. Both share a number of morphological, syntactic and semantic properties. For instance, they may be combined with different categorial classes (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, verbs, nouns and sentences) and they receive a similar appreciative meaning (´very´, ´much´, ´certainly´, ´great´ or ´true´, depending on the categorial combination). Besides, both are used in informal speech, in the Rio de la Plata Spanish, mainly among the young people (re), and in the Paraguaian Spanish in contact with Guarani (ité). The proposed analysis of these elements follows the lines of Distributed Morphology, intending to reduce both the number of lexical entries and the inventory of formal features in syntax. Additionally, we expect to make a contribution to the general discussion about the concepts of quantification and intensification.