Quantity and degree modification in English and Italian prefixes

This contribution looks into (dis-)similarities in meaning and uses of Italian and English prefixes that may realize the semantic role of quantity or show a shift from quantity to the expression of quality and the role of degree. The focus is on cognates of Greek and Latin origin (hence, neoclassical combining forms). Based on qualitative and quantitative investigation into lexicographic references, parallel and (partly) comparable corpora, the analysis backs the outcomes of research carried out in Cacchiani (2011). Importantly, the shift from quantity to quality and degree appears to characterize prefixes that denote large quantities (e.g. It. megagalattico ‘ginormous’), importance and excess (It. un iperrealista ‘a hyperrealistic’, Eng. hyperdangerous; Eng. supercool; It. ultrafeminine ‘ultra-feminine’, Eng. ultragorgeous). Occurrence as separate adjectives and implicit superlatives (e.g. Eng./It. super, Eng./It. mega), recursivity (super super super), accumulation (It. stra mega brava ‘so unbelievably good.F’, 13c; very super ultra hyper mega), modification of implicit superlatives that are colloquial or slang words (Eng. mega-fuckstruck) , as well as the presence of orality features (e.g. exclamation marks) and evaluative morphology (It. ciccina bella ‘my sweet little girl.DIM.F’) in the immediate linguistic co-text all point to the a relatively strong and more subjective and emotional type of evaluation, which can easily lend itself to pragmatic intensification. Cross-linguistically, this appears to come with departures from morphological translation equivalence (Lowie 2000).