The tag and everything revisited: The case of u-kulši in Arabic
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Mohammed Farghal
Abstract
The paper first reviews previous analyses of the English tag and everything, which have shown the tag to function at both the semantic and pragmatic levels. A comparison is made between English and everything and the Arabic tag u-kulši , and it is pointed out that, while both English and Arabic versions mark the preceding conjunct as a member of a set, the Arabic tag can be used in such a way that the set being alluded to is not specified but is clear from the context. It is argued that such usage indicates that the tag is being used exclusively as a device of intensification. In an attempt to marry the idea ofu-kulši as being a degree-based intensifier and a quantity-based set marker, evidence is presented showing that degree and quantity may swap roles in Arabic intensification. The speaker’s affective state in relation to the situation in hand is also seen to be important in analysing the tag and a detailed discussion is presented of how supra-segmentals operate on the tag and what comes before it to convey different meanings.
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Eighteenth-century prescriptivism in English: A re-evaluation of its effects on actual language usage
- Globalisation, advertising and language choice: Shifting values for Welsh and Welshness in Y Drych, 1851–2001
- Belgian Dutch versus Netherlandic Dutch: New patterns of divergence? On pronouns of address and diminutives
- The tag and everything revisited: The case of u-kulši in Arabic
- Russian–Estonian language contacts, linguistic creativity, and convergence: New rules in the making
- Book reviews
- Publication received
- Contents Volume 24 (2005)
