Adverbs

1. WORKING DEFINITION OF ADVERBIAL INTENSIFIERS

The definitions for parts of speech are not in all cases the same.  For instance, one can argue that Intensifier is a subcategory of Degree Adverbs, since some (most) Degree Adverbs are not necessarily intensifying. One can also argue that an Intensifying Adverb is a different category altogether. In this paper, I will not make either of these distinctions, but use Degree Adverb and Intensifying Adverb interchangeably. The main reason for this is that there seems to be no distinction between Degree Adverb and Intensifying Adverb in academic literature or in corpus linguistic practice. For example, the International Corpus of English (ICE) uses the part-of-speech tag, “Adverb, Intensifier” to mean both. Compare the following extracts from ICE:

1.      “... for the relatively simple way in which entries could be added....”

2.       “I chose this approach almost immediately.”

3.      “... but is complicated severely by the need to update the first....”

All three examples were tagged as intensifying adverb. It should be obvious that examples 1 and 2 are in fact downtoning the intensity, while example 3 is doing the “real” job of intensifying. It is clear that ICE seems to use the term Intensifying Adverb to mean the same as Degree Adverb. To substantiate the claim that it is simply the intensity that is referred to in Intensifying Adverb, compare the Quirkian intensifier categories mentioned by Lorenz (1998:56). It is a set of scalar intensifier categories defined according to the respective degree they express.

CATEGORY	TYPICAL WORDS	EXPLANATION	TYPICAL EXAMPLES FROM DATA
Maximizers	completely, absolutely, etc	Cannot get more than this.	Now I’m going to ask you something completely different…
Boosters	very, highly, immensely, etc	Very intense, but there is the possibility of it getting even more intense.	Julie is very nice.
Approximators	nearly, virtually, etc	Showing “almost but not quite.” Indicating that a statement is near to correct, but not 100% so.	…even though in practice it would be virtually impossible.
Compromisers	fairly, pretty, rather, etc	Allowing opportunity for someone else to disagree with the statement.	But she was pretty insistent…
Diminishers	slightly, a little, etc.	Showing the statement is true to a small degree.	…in fact, it's probably slightly stronger tasting…
Minimizers	hardly, scarcely	Showing the statement is not true or true to a very small degree.	These countries can hardly afford to take care of…