(NE)DOVOLjNOST KOMPARATIVNOG I POZITIVNOG STEPENA U SRPSKOM I ENGLESKOM JEZIKU

Abstract

Contemporary literature often classifies categorically diverse lexemes into adverbial intensifiers. The paper presents the results of independent corpus analyses of two languages. The largest available electronic corpora are used here: Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and Korpus savremenog srpskog jezika 2013 (KSSJ). A semasiological approach is used to identify adverbs signifying (in)sufficiency of the degree expressed by comparatives and positives. The contrastive analyses expand the repertoire of lexical expressions of the desired semantics described in the current literature. The adverbs within this class can be further classified based on their integral semes: ’sufficient degree’, ’insufficient degree’, and ’excessive degree’. This paper demonstrates that intensity is not an inherent property of this group of adverbs. In other words, semantically speaking, they are not real intensifiers. Based on their basic semantics, they are immediate classifiers of a degree of scalar expressions they modify. Finally, we must conclude that the adverbs of this class in both languages can be used as intensifiers, but only pragmatically. Based on the criteria defined by R. Đorđević (2005), the contrastive analysis conducted here can be determined as a theoretical, structural, descriptive contrastive analysis. The results demonstrate that the adverbials with the same integral seme in two languages are systematic equivalents to each other. The equivalence is illustrated with the examples retrieved from Englesko-srpski paralelni korpus (ESPK).