How does the expressive uses of ‘muito’ (Brazilian Portuguese) challenges its unified analysis?

Abstract

“Muito” is a prototypical degree modifier (intensifier) in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). It can modify adjectives, verbal phrases, nouns (count and mass) and adverbs, as long as they are scalar. In all domains, “muito” is a degree booster. Its semantics is akin to the one proposed by Kennedy & McNally (2005) to the English degree modifier “very” and may alternatively be expressed as a differential function. There is no s-selection by “muito” in quality scales (as provided by adjectives). Nevertheless, in quantity scales, “muito” operates exclusively on open scales. Verbal aspectual dimensions are quantity scales. Nouns also provide quantity scales (volume, number) For “muito” to be licensed, the amount must not have an upper limit. With this provision, a unified analysis of “muito” is attainable. (Gomes, 2018, Quadros Gomes, 2025). Only one case, noticed by Sanchez-Mendes (2022), resists to fit in: the expressive “muito” in examples like “Foi muito golpe!” (It was really a coup d’état). This article sizes those challenges to the unified account, discusses the lengths and shorts of Sanchez-Mendes (2022) proposal for the case at hand and brings in an analysis that reconciles those expressive uses with a general semantics for “muito”. It proposes that emphatic “muito” promotes a comparison between the truth alternatives for the sentence and asserts that the affirmative one is far more accurate, based on epistemic/believe states than the negative. The pragmatic effects are confirmation effects. So, at the end of the day, “muito” always contributes an implicit superiority comparison, never a closed scale.