Magari

Abstract

We propose a constructionist approach to the polyfunctionality of the Italian focus particle magari (roughly corresponding to ‘maybe’, but also ‘I wish’). The sheer syntactic versatility of this word leads us to detect its formal regularities at the level of discourse configurations. This level of analysis, identified within the French linguistic tradition, is defined by the maintenance of a predicate-argument-adjunct structure in discourse. The salient feature of discourse configurations is their shape, which can be described by referring to a number of topological patterns: lists of elements in the same syntactic position, repetition of syntactic structures, shifting of elements from a post-verbal to a pre-verbal position and so on. These topological patterns are meaningful to an extent and they are eligible to be regarded as constructions. Magari is shown to be regularly associated with a general topological pattern, namely a list of items that occupy the same syntactic position as the item focused by magari. Each semantic function of magari correlates with one particular kind of list. These associations of a form (the different types of lists) and a meaning (the functions of magari) are shown to be related to one another by means of inheritance links.

Mitigation via exemplification in present-day Italian: A corpus-based study

“…'is it possible?') and the disjunctive list (see Masini and Pietrandrea 2010). The occurrence under examination is representative of a general pattern, where the speaker utters a specific request in the interrogative form and provides the hearer with other conceptually related options (namely, locally-relevant examples, which are active) the interlocutor should think of to satisfy the speaker's current needs; such linguistic strategies mirror a process of mutual cooperation and the background knowledge of interlocutors (König and Siemund 2007).…”

“…Magari also retains an intrinsically epistemic meaning, which could be a potential trigger to speed up pragmatic functions (Masini and Pietrandrea 2010). Per esempio and ad esempio clearly refer to the process of exemplification on textual and discursive grounds.…”

Syntactic and semantic aspects of Romance complementizers

“…The occurrence of 'if' complements within the scope of uncertainty predicates entails that 'if' complements have a specific type of non-factual meaning, i.e. what has been called a non-exclusion-of-factuality meaning (Masini & Pietrandrea 2010;Pietrandrea 2011). Let us examine closely this conceptual notion, thoroughly described by Pietrandrea (2011).…”

Multifunctionality of modal markers:Lithuanian epistemic adverbials gal and galbūt ‘perhaps/maybe’ vs. their translational correspondences

“…The word magari received more attention in Masini and Pietrandrea (2010). In their study of the Italian magari the scholars tried to propose a constructionist approach to its multifunctionality at the level of discourse configurations.…”