The Puzzle of quasi prima 'almost before' and quasi dopo 'almost after'

Patricia Amaral (1) , Fabio Del Prete (2)

1 UNC - University of North Carolina [Chapel Hill]
2 CLLE-ERSS - Cognition, Langues, Langage, Ergonomie

This paper focuses on a puzzling asymmetry which arises when the Italian approximative adverb quasi 'almost' modifies the temporal connectives prima 'before' and dopo 'after'. By looking at naturally occurring data, we observe that A quasi prima che B 'A almost before B' can be used to convey that an A-eventuality occurs early, only a little bit after a B-eventuality occurs. A sentence of the form A quasi dopo che B 'A almost after B', however, cannot be used to convey that an A-eventuality occurs late, only a little bit before a B-eventuality. We propose a solution for this puzzle that relies on an analysis of quasi as a scale-sensitive adverb and on an asymmetric semantic account of prima and dopo: prima has the meaning of the temporal comparative 'earlier', while dopo denotes a binary relation of temporal succession between events. We show that our account of quasi prima reveals a more general pattern of interpretation found when quasi modifies a comparative.

Mots clés: Approximative adverbs; Scalar adverbs; Temporal connectives; Focus semantics

Domaines: Linguistique

Patricia Amaral, Fabio Del Prete. The Puzzle of quasi prima 'almost before' and quasi dopo 'almost after'. Semantics and Linguistic Theory 19, Apr 2009, Columbus, United States. pp.19-36. ⟨hal-00952738⟩