The world that exists today. → The world today.
We kept vigil overnight. → Our vigil overnight.
Then he was the President. → The then President.
These paradigmatic transformational correlations explain the type of connection between the noun and its adverbial attribute even in cases where direct transformational changes would not be quite consistent with the concrete contextual features of constructions [13, 221]. What is important here, is the fact that the adverb used to modify a noun actually relates to the whole corresponding situation underlying the noun phrase.
3.2 Semantic and syntactic properties of adverbs of degree
Expounded in this chapter is the class of adverbs of degree as one of the most numerous and syntagmatically active classes of adverbs.
In English there is a class of lexical elements known as adverbs of degree [13] or intensifiers [18]. They are so labeled because they are considered to operate on certain linguistic elements to magnify the degree of intensification or to amplify certain qualities.
There is a substantial discrepancy of opinion concerning the terminology related to adverbs of degree. It can be argued that intensifier is a subcategory of adverbs of degree, since some (most) adverbs of degree are not necessarily intensifying. Another view is that an intensifier is a different category altogether. In this paper neither of these distinctions will be made, but adverb of degree and intensifier will be used interchangeably. The main reason for this is that there seems to be no distinction between degree adverb and intensifying adverb in academic literature.
There has been considerable academic interest in such adverbs for many years. Stoffel discusses intensive adverbs, noting that those which etymologically express completeness have a tendency to weaken over time [33]. There is a high turnover of such words and this area of language changes relatively quickly.
Stoffel’s terms, ‘intensives’ and ‘downtoners’, are adopted by Quirk in the seminal Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985) [29]. Intensification is a pervasive function in language [10]. Dwight Bolinger expands the discussion of intensifiers from the use of adverbs to qualify adjectives and adverbs, to these and other parts of speech modifying the strength of nouns and verbs as well such as the intensifying adjective qualifying the noun:
It was utter heaven [14, 151].
He notes that some syntactic forms also function as intensifiers:
He talked back to her and was she mad! [14, 151]
More recently, intensifiers have been the object of corpus research. Partington relates the delexicalisation of intensifiers to syntactic flexibility. In his view the lower the semantic content of an intensifier, the more restricted the syntactic environments in which it may occur. The more restricted the syntactic flexibility of an item, the more reduced is its semantic potential [27, 190].
That is, an intensifier like ‘extremely’ today occurs almost exclusively in premodifying position, whereas in the past it was also comfortable in postmodifying position:
A sinecure which would fitt me extremely [27, 190].
Or it could occupy position before a prepositional phrase:
Two humours equall abounding together, extremely in superfluite [27, 190].
This in turn relates to the phenomenon of collocation. In fact, the more delexicalised an intensifier, the more widely it collocates: the greater the range and number of modifiers it combines with [27, 183]. In other words, the less meaning is contained within the intensifier itself, the more it will acquire from its surrounding co-text.
Thus, adverbs of degree (or intensifiers) are those adverbs which function to increase or tone down the strength of another word in the sentence, usually an adjective, verb or another adverb. Intensifiers are said to have three different functions: they can emphasize, amplify, or downtone [11].
Adverbs of degree exhibit a number of syntactic and semantic properties typical of an adverb. They are often used, for example, in a preverbal (including adjectival) position and form a syntactic sequence [20]:
Adverb of degree Adjective (Phrase) / Verb (Phrase)
e.g.: (1): Quitting my old job was an extremely difficult decision [40].
(2): He hardly noticed what she was saying [40].
(3): I am too tired to go out tonight [41].
(4): You absolutely have to confront this belief [41].
Examples (1)-(4) also represent some of the commonly recognized syntactic functions of adverbial elements, namely, as a modifier modifying a single verb or an adjective, or as an adverbial affecting the whole adjectival or verbal phrase. Thus, in example (1) extremely can be seen as modifying the adjective difficult, in (2) hardly modifies the verb notice, and in (3) and (4) adverbs of degree too and absolutely modify, respectively, verbal expressions.
Some intensifiers, however, occupy different position in the sentence. For instance, enough as an adverb meaning 'to the necessary degree', when it modifies an adjective or another adverb, is placed in post-position to them:
Is your coffee hot enough [38]? (adjective)
He didn't work hardenough [38]. (adverb)
It also goes before nouns, and means 'as much as is necessary'. In this case it is not an adverb, but a 'determiner':
We have enoughbread [40].
They don't have enough food [40].
Adverbs of degree can also modify certain kinds of prepositional
phrases:
They lived nearly on the top of the hill [41].
I'm almost through with my work [41].
His remarks were not quite to the point [38].
There are a few intensifiers in English which can function as attributes modifying nouns:
He was fully master of the situation [38].
She was quite a child [41].
While the syntax and semantics of intensifiers are generally well understood, thanks to the work of descriptive grammarians, little has been done to investigate other patterns connected with intensifiers, notably, their freestanding use. The freestanding use here refers to a situation where adverb of degree is not followed by any adjectival or verbal predicate. This is illustrated by examples below:
(1) An interview between a reporter and a famous soprano:
Reporter: Was it a bit learning process doing that recording session with the playbacks?
Soprano: Oh, absolutely, also because it was one of my earliest recordings, and in fact in every recording, and in every performance, I learn something. [24]
(2) A dialogue between a parent and a child:
Parent: Have you finished your essay?
Child: Almost. I didn’t have enough time for that. [24]
Quirk R. proposes a number of adverbial categories for English [29, 590, 613]. Relevant here are the categories of adjuncts and disjuncts, and the freestanding use of intensifiers presented in the above examples would be instances of disjuncts. The scholar mentions that unlike the intensifier adjuncts, which have a narrow orientation, disjuncts are more freestanding: they are syntactically more detached and have a scope that extends over the sentence as a whole [29, 613]. In fact Quirk R. notes that not only can disjuncts stand alone, but they also can be responses to questions or can be used as a comment on a previous utterance, usually accompanied by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ [29, 628]. Clearly the distinction made by Quirk between adjuncts and disjuncts is a useful one. Nevertheless a number of important properties concerning the freestanding disjuncts absolutely and almost have not been fully explored.
Firstly, the adverbial element absolutely is considered by Quirk R. as both an adjunct and a disjunct. The question is whether there is any connection between the adjunct, dependent use and the disjunct, freestanding use.
Secondly, the freestanding pattern, as exemplified above, is interesting not only in terms of the deviant syntactic behavior (a modifier without a head) from the point of view of a typical adverb, but also in terms of semantics and interactive pragmatics. From a semantic point of view, even without any adjectives or verbal elements (i.e., syntactic heads that are supposed to indicate the content of the semantic scale), absolutely alone can imply a positive answer or an affirmative action. Thus, in example (1) even though the interviewee does not state explicitly whether she agrees with the interviewer’s assessment, the interviewer and the reader can infer unequivocally that she does.
Lastly, Quirk R. asserts that disjuncts are usually accompanied by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ [29, 628]. This statement leaves an impression that both affirmative and negative answering tokens are possible candidates with the disjuncts. However, there are preferred patterns in actual language use. It is necessary to look at actual language use and understand language structure, including modification structure, as a dynamic, unsettled phenomenon [14, 18]. The epistemic propensity of the lexical item and the context in which the modifier is used gives rise to the independent use.
3.3 The use of adverbs of degree with gradable and non-gradable adjectives
Most adjectives have a meaning which can be made stronger or weaker; these are called ‘gradable adjectives’. Here are some examples of adjectives used as gradable in their most common meanings [21, 134]:
| Grading adverbs | Gradable adjectives | |
| a bit, dreadfully, extremely, hugely, immensely, intensely, rather, reasonably, slightly, very | + | quiet, rich, strong, weak, young, angry, big, busy, clever, common, deep, fast, friendly, happy, important, low, popular |
She was extremely rich [38].
The people there are reasonably friendly [41].
Other adjectives have a meaning which is extreme or absolute and cannot easily be made stronger or weaker. These are called ‘non-gradable adjectives’. With non-gradable adjectives can be used adverbs which emphasize their extreme or absolute nature, such as absolutely, completely etc. Many classifying adjectives which are used to say that something is of particular type (medical, environmental, chemical; annual, general, northern, etc.) are usually non-gradable. Here are some examples of adjectives used as non-gradable in their most common meanings [21, 134]:
| Non-grading adverbs | Non-gradable adjectives | |
| Absolutely, completely, entirely, perfectly, practically, simply, totally, utterly, virtually; almost, exclusively, fully, largely, mainly, nearly, primarily | + | Awful, excellent, huge, impossible, superb, terrible, unique, unknown, whole, domestic, environmental |
She gave us a completely impossible problem to solve [38].
It was absolutely superb [38].
Gradable adjectives are sometimes used with non-grading adverbs such as absolutely and totally, and non-gradable adjectives are sometimes used with grading adverbs such as extremely, rather and very, particularly to add special emphasis or humorous effect:
What you’re asking isn’t just difficult – it’s extremely impossible [21, 134]! (grading adverb + non-gradable adjective)
You’ve won a hundred pounds? Wow, you’re virtually rich [21, 134]! (non-grading adverb + gradable adjective)
The adverbs fairly
(= to quite a large degree, but usually less then ‘very’), really (= ‘very (much)’) and pretty (= similar to ‘fairly’; used in informal contexts) are commonly used with both gradable and non-gradable adjectives [21, 134]:
She is fairly popular at school.
I’m really busy at the moment.
It’s a pretty important exam.
It was a fairly awful film.
The flooding was really terrible.
The bill was pretty huge.
However, fairly (or very) is not generally used with gradable adjectives such as essential, invaluable, perfect, superb, tremendous and wonderful which indicate that something is very good or necessary:
Some experience is really/pretty essential for the job [38].
The weather that day was really/pretty perfect [38].
Some adjectives have both gradable and non-gradable senses. Such group of adjectives includes [21, 136]:
1. Adjectives which have different senses when they are gradable and non-gradable (civil, clean, common, electric, empty, false, late, odd, old, original, particular, straight):
Smith is very common nam. (=frequently found; gradable)
We have a lot of common interests. (=shared; non-gradable)
The house is very old. (= existed many years; gradable)
I met my old politics professor the other day. (= former; non-gradable)
Sue’s shoes are very clean. (= not dirty; gradable)
He left the town because he wanted to make a clean break with the past. (= starting again in different circumstances; non-gradable) [21, 136]
2. Adjectives which have similar meanings when they are gradable and non-gradable. However, when they are gradable they show the quality that a person or thing has (i. e. they are qualitative adjectives and therefore can be used with an adverb), and when they are non-gradable they indicate the category or type they belong to (i. e. they are classifying adjectives) (academic, adult, average, diplomatic, foreign, genuine, guilty, human, individual, innocent, mobile, private, professional, public, scientific, technical, true, wild):
I don’t know where he came from, but he sounded slightly foreign. (= not from this country; gradable)
She is now advising on the government’s foreign policy. (= concerning other countries; non-gradable)
They had a very public argument. (= seen/heard by a lot of people; gradable)
He was forced to resign by public pressure. (= from many people in the community; non-gradable) [21, 136]
3. Non-gradable nationality adjectives indicate that a person or thing comes from a particular country. Gradable nationality adjectives show that they have supposed characteristics of that country:
There’s a shop around the corner that sells Italian bread [40].
Giovanni has lived in Britain for 20 years, but he’s still very Italian [40].
3.4 Semantic preferences of amplifiers
A crucial factor in explaining the independent use of intensifiers is the collocation patterns of the dependent use. Different lexical items can have diverse collocation patterns. This diversity is realized at at least two levels:
1) the preference for different word forms. According to Kennedy G. 76-78 percent of the adjectives co-occurring with the adverb completely have an -ed suffix [24, 155];
2) the preference for different semantic association patterns, commonly known as semantic prosodies and semantic preferences [31; 25; 31].
This subchapter mainly is concerned with the notion of semantic preference.
According to Stubbs, semantic preference deals with the relation between a lemma or word-form and a set of semantically related words [34, 65]. With regard to the semantic preference of amplifiers, researchers who have looked at various types of British English data seem to be, in spirit, in agreement with Quirk R. that amplifiers can equally co-occur with both affirmative and negative terms [29]. Partington offers the following observation: a subset of amplifying intensifiers includes absolutely, perfectly, entirely, completely, thoroughly, totally and utterly. The first of these, absolutely, displays a distinct semantic preference in collocating with items which have a strong or superlative sense: among its significant collocates (i.e. those which co-occur with the keyword three times or more) in the Cobuild corpus were: delighted, enchanting, splendid, preposterous, appalling, intolerable. There appears to be an even balance between favourable and unfavourable items [27, 146]. This preference is well documented in modern corpus-based dictionaries: absolutely can be used to add force to a strong adjective [40].
It leads the author to conclude that absolutely has no strong preferences with regard to favorable or unfavorable semantic meanings in its collocates, and the only significant semantic pattern is that absolutely prefers superlative and hyperbolic expressions. Similarly, it is believed that absolutely tends to be associated with adjectives that are used hyperbolically (e.g., fabulous, marvelous, fantastic, brilliant, filthy, freezing); the adjectives have both positive (wonderful) and negative (disgusting) associations [24, 112]. However, even though it is true that both positive and negative associations are possible, positive cases outnumber negative ones by a large margin (Table 4).