Why almost and almost are not even approximately the same: The diachronic semantics of approximatives in Hungarian

Halm, Tamás András (2023) Why almost and almost are not even approximately the same: The diachronic semantics of approximatives in Hungarian. In: Language Change: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives. Jerusalem Studies in Philosophy and History of Science . Springer, Cham. (In Press)

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Abstract

In my paper, I will explore the diachronic semantics of two almost-approximators in Hungarian: majdnem (‘almost-M’) and szinte (‘almost-S’). I will show that there is a neat division of labour between these two: majdnem is an intensional approximator (possible worlds, cf. Sadock 1981, Nouwen 2006 a.o) whereas szinte is a scalar approximator (precision standards, cf. Penka 2005, Sauerland & Stateva 2007, Amaral & del Prete 2010, Greenberg & Ronen 2013 a.o.), a situation similar to that observed in Russian (čut’ ne and počti, cf. Kagan and Wolf 2015). I will show that this can be straightforwardly derived from the grammaticalization trajectories of the two approximators: majdnem derives from the adverb majd ‘soon’ (and the expletive negator nem ‘no’) and szinte derives from an adverb originally meaning ‘by out-ward appearance, superficially’. These two processes both exhibit semantic bleaching and the semanticization of originally pragmatically inferred information (Eckardt 2006). With the help of corpus data, I will also track and explain in terms of competing grammars (Niyogi 2002) how, in certain environments, majdnem is in the process of crowding szinte out.

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