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Just for the hell of it: A comparison of two taboo-term constructions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2008

JACK HOEKSEMA  and
DONNA JO NAPOLI
JACK HOEKSEMA*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
DONNA JO NAPOLI*
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College
*
Authors' addresses: Department of Dutch Language and Culture, Faculty of Letters, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 716, 9700 AS Groningen, The Netherlands. j.hoeksema@rug.nl
Department of Linguistics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, U.S.A.dnapoli1@swarthmore.edu
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Abstract

The two English constructions exemplified in Let's get the hell out of here (type G) and They beat the hell out of him (type B) differ both syntactically and semantically, but in both the taboo expression has the force of an intensifier. History (through a corpus investigation) reveals that the B-construction started as a literal exorcism (beat the devil out of someone), where the hell substituted for the devil, and semantic bleaching ultimately made the literal sense give way to simple emphasis, with any taboo term jumping in. The G-construction may have developed simultaneously, always as an intensifier – or, perhaps, later, on analogy with B. Our analysis suggests that the use of taboo terms as intensifiers spread from wh-constructions to these constructions and, finally, to degree intensifier constructions. These two uses of taboo terms as intensifiers are best characterized in terms of constructions and thus offer evidence against theories lacking any notion of constructions as basic building blocks. Further, they give us information about language change: a pragmatically unified but semantically disparate class of expressions (namely, taboo terms) can extend its distribution in parallel.

Private Carr: God fuck old Bennett.He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him.(James Joyce, Ulysses)

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , July 2008 , pp. 347 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

[1]

We thank Swarthmore College for awarding Jack Hoeksema the Cornell Visiting Professorship in 2005–2006, which allowed us to begin this work. We also thank the anonymous JL reviewers and Orin Gensler for help through to the final draft.

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