Affective meaning in language

Affective meaning is pervasive in language. In this chapter we discuss its presence at multiple levels of linguistic analysis, with special attention to the lexicon. In a first introduction to the phenomenon, we explain and illustrate two types of affective meaning (denotative and connotative) and three ways to account for it (categorical, dimensional and feature-based approaches) transversal to all levels of analysis. We then illustrate how affect is communicated in phonology, morphology, the lexicon, and syntax, with examples from different languages. The discussion of the lexicon is further organized around two variables: (a) the word's grammatical class, where we discuss emotion concepts as nouns (e.g., joy), verbs (e.g., to embarrass), adjectives (e.g., sad) and adverbs (e.g., surprisingly); and (b) the word's figurativeness, where we analyze affective meaning in literal (e.g. to rage) and figurative expressions (e.g., to erupt) and discuss the privileged link between figurative language and emotion.