Lexicographic Portrait of the Italian Approximative Quasi and Its Synonyms

Abstract

This article analyzes the nominative approximation strategies in the Italian language and provides an integrated semantic description of the approximate functions of the lexeme quasi and its synonyms. The article is divided into four sections. In the first section we introduce the term approximation, as it is a relatively poorly studied semantic category, although scientific interest in this regard is growing. In the second section we present a fundamental, but still little known, publication on approximation based on the study of the French language, being the first comprehensive study on this semantic category. In the third section we present the dictionary use of the word quasi. Finally, in the fourth section, we analyze and describe the morphological, semantic, pragmatic and syntactic properties of lexeme quasi and its synonyms, as well as their combinability and communicative characteristics in order to provide an analysis model for further studies on the semantic category of approximation. The semantic analysis of the approximative quasi and its synonyms demonstrate how the dictionary meaning of the approximatives is fundamental to identify and distinguish their various approximate characters.