Multimodal analysis of conjoined comparatives

Repeated comparatives joined by the conjunction and (for instance more and more , bigger and bigger , etc.) are used to express a gradually increasing/decreasing degree of quality or quantity. The repetition in these phrases reveals an even higher/lower degree of the quality or quantity than with a single comparative form. The aim of this study is to determine whether this gradation is associated with specific gesture sequences, whether the progressive aspect inherent in the construction’s semantics is also expressed in the verb of the clause or in gesture, and finally whether the semantic prominence expressed in the phrase finds a correlation with prosodic emphasis or emphasis marked with the use of bodily behaviour like head and eyebrow movements. In the perspective of CxG, the study aims at exploring whether these forms are entrenched in usage as multimodal constructions and how speakers express gradation in space. Results show that although gestures and prosodic emphasis are not frequent enough to consider [ COMP 1 and COMP 1] as a multimodal construction, some gesture patterns are certainly more frequent than others, especially the use of iconic gestures in sequences that match the verbal repetition of the comparative.