Composing words and non-words

Recent work in supersemantics and in the semantic interpretation of prosody has showed that non-words (gestural, prosodic an iconic elements) can make truth conditional contributions. This paper contends that the way that they make their contributions-the way that they are integrated into semantic representations-calls into question foundational assumptions about how semantics works. I explore the case of a prosodic contour that can act as an intensifier (a word like 'very' or 'really') and argue that its compositional behaviour indicates that it is integrated into sentence meaning in a secondary, dependent way and that this reveals a novel form of layering in semantic interpretation.

Automated summary

Recent work in supersemantics and the semantic interpretation of prosody has shown that non-words can contribute to truth conditions. This paper explores the case of a prosodic contour that functions as an intensifier and argues that its integration into sentence meaning challenges foundational assumptions about semantics, revealing a novel form of layering in semantic interpretation.