Strategie di intensificazione in russo: i nomi non scalari tra semantica e pragmatica

This paper is part of the studies on intensification, i.e. a family of linguistic strategies that scale the referential force of a lexical item either upwardsor downwards. Focusing on phenomena of upward intensification, the study examines the morphological, syntactic and lexical strategies employed in Russian to intensify non-scalar nouns. Moreover it will attempt to explore the semantic-cognitive mechanisms (such as strengthening of meaning, class-membership and prototypicality), that induce a degree reading of non-scalar nouns. The last part of the paper discusses some pragmatic issues connected with the process of semantic intensification.