Maximum minima: the emphatic value of minimizer expressions

Abstract

The use of minimizer expressions in negative polarity contexts is a pragmatic strategy to increase the relevance of an utterance. Minimizers are the lowest step of a scale that is inferentially configured from the presuppositions managed by the speaker. This pragmatic scale becomes completely negated when the lowest step is negated and thus all the active presuppositions. In this piece of work a general classification of minimizer expressions in Peninsular Spanish is proposed taking into account semantic and syntactic criteria. Two main properties of these units are also explained, sensibility to negative polarity and scalarity, because the interaction between them triggers inferential processes that add extra information to an utterance and increase its relevance.