When you say, “I love you so!” (in this case, to my cat)
what kind of “so” is it?
Is it so like in “so much?”
Or so as in “like so?”
a : to an indicated or suggested extent or degree <had never been so happy>
**b : to a great extent or degree : very, extremely <loves her so> **
c : to a definite but unspecified extent or degree <can only do so much in a day>
d : most certainly : indeed <you did so do it> e : most decidedly : surely <I so don’t believe you>
I suspect you’re also asking for the derivation, though. From the context, it would appear to be an elliptical form of “so much.” But I’ll leave that part up to the pros.
But it’s a free bump.
It’s so as in “so much”. But there is a logical and historical connection between the two uses: “like so” = “like some contextually specified way”. “so much” = “much to a contextually specified degree”. Over time, “contextually specified degree” becomes “high degree”. “I love you so” = “I love you to a high degree”.
Also, compare a similar semantic drift with “that”. “Is it 6 inches long?” “No, it’s not that long” = “No it’s not long to that contextually specified degree.” But cf. “I’m not that innocent”, which most naturally means “I’m not innocent to a high degree” rather than “I’m not innocent to a contextually specified degree”. The semantic drift exemplified by both “so” and “that” is from “deictic degree” to “high degree”.
I don’t know how this is grammaticly described, but I thought “so” meant something like “in this way”, referring to some verbal or non-verbal part of the conversation. Sort of like saying “I love you thus”.
And after looking up a definition of “thus”, it shows this second definition:
I don’t think it implies “so much” directly.
If it refers to something nonverbal, it’s grammatically described as “deictic”. If it refers to something verbal, it’s grammatically described as “anaphoric”.
I think it does. As I tried to take pains to explain, “so” may begin life serving a deictic function, but it ends up becoming associated with a (non-deictic) “high degree” meaning.
What if while crushing an annoying pest with my foot I sneer and say “I love you so”? I suppose you could say it was irony, but it just seems this method of using “so” to mean “so much” is just entangled in the phrase “I love you” where it would usually mean that. But what about when you demonstrate a knot and say “Tie it so”?
ETA: Nevermind, I see you did cover this earlier. It is about the entanglement in this case.