Agenda

Several languages display Qualitative Binominal Noun Phrases (QBNPs), i.e. binominal structures where the first noun phrase encodes an evaluation by the speaker of the referent denoted by the second noun phrase, and at the same time conveys the emotional state of the speaker. An example of such a structure is given in (1), which conveys the fact that the speaker is annoyed by a professor, for whatever reason:
(1) That idiot of a professor has disappeared again!
A common trait shared by the works focusing on this topic is the observation that expressivity has a clear syntactic dimension, namely that expressivity cannot be conceived of as provided by specific lexical items (and the pragmatic inferences they generate) alone. We adopt such a view, and argue that Italian provides evidence for the existence of (at least) three different classes of Expressive Nouns (EN), which differ from each other in terms of (i) semantic and pragmatic contribution to the proposition, (ii) syntactic distribution, and (iii) concord patterns.

Edoardo Cavirani holds a research position at the University of Masaryk (Brno).