1.3.5.3 Degree Adverbs
So far we have looked at auxiliary verbs, which accompany verbs, and determiners, which accompany nouns, classifying these as functional equivalents of the categories they accompany. The obvious choice for functional adjectives, therefore, are the degree adverbs that accompany them:
| (166) | a | so light |
| b | too heavy | |
| c | as thick (as a brick) |
Thus we might categorise these elements as [+F, +N, +V].
It is a complex, but interesting question as to what counts as a degree adverb. Firstly, these elements are used primarily to indicate the degree to which the state or property expressed by an adjective holds of something. But there are a number of elements that do this, not all of which seem to behave the same:
| (167) | a | too strong |
| b | very fast | |
| c | quite real | |
| d | extremely tiring |
Some of these degree modifiers are in complementary distribution with each other, indicating that they belong to the same category:
| (168) | a | *too so tall |
| b | *so as wide | |
| c | *as too long |
However, others are not in complementary distribution:
| (169) | a | so very boring |
| b | quite as fragile | |
| c | as extremely frustrating |
This would suggest that not all of these words should be categorised as degree adverbs, that is, as words with [+F, +N, +V] categorial features. Given that normal adverbs can be used to modify adjectives, some of the cases in (167) can simply be taken as adverbs, especially those that are formed from adjectives by the ly morpheme:
| (170) | a | he obviously left | obviously tired |
| b | they certainly met | certainly irregular | |
| c | we wanted it extremely | extremely tough |
Others however are more difficult to categorise. Words like very do not appear to be able to be used as typical adverbs, modifying verbs or sentences, but are restricted to modifying adjectives as are the degree adverbs:
| (171) | *he flexed his muscles very |
Besides distributional properties, degree adverbs also have other properties that unify them. For example, it is typical for a degree adverb to appear alongside a clausal element which follows the adjective being modified:
| (172) | a | so fat [that he couldn’t do up the buttons] |
| b | too far [to walk] | |
| c | as stupid [as they come] |
This clause specifies the bounds to which the degree of the property expressed by the modified adjective is given. Note that plain adverb modifiers of adjectives do not appear with such limiting clauses:
| (173) | a | *very tired [that he had to rest] |
| b | *extremely big [to get through the door] | |
| c | *quite famous [as I am] |
There is an interpretation in which these kind of constructions are not ungrammatical. However, this is where the following clauses are associated with the adjectives or even the whole clause rather than the degree modifiers:
| (174) | a | he was tired, [(so) that he had to rest] |
| b | the sofa was big [to get through the door] | |
| c | he is famous, [as I am] (in formal English: as am I) |
This is another reason to consider these words to belong to different categories.
Other words which behave as degree adverbs both distributionally and in that they can be accompanied by a limiting clause are the comparative and superlative adverbs more and most:
| (175) | a | so fanatical | more fanatical | *so more fanatical |
| b | as wonderful | most wonderful | *as most wonderful | |
| c | more predictable [than I am] | |||
| d | most regrettable [of all] | |||
Although the accompanying element to most does not look much like a clause, its interpretation is of all the things that are regrettable, which is more clause like. These observations also lead us to consider the inflectional comparative and superlative:
| (176) | a | so nice | nicer | *so nicer |
| b | as tall | tallest | *as tallest | |
| c | cuter [than I am] | |||
| d | strongest [of all] | |||
Clearly, these behave exactly like the periphrastic constructions, and hence would seem to involve a degree adverb. The obvious choice would be the comparative and superlative morphemes themselves, which would suggest an analysis similar to what was proposed for verbal inflections: the comparative and superlative are independent lexical elements which are inserted into an expression separately into the degree adverb position and then by a syntactic process become attached to the adjective:
| (177) | a | |
| b |
Below, we can see a selection of lexical entries for degree adverbs:
| (178) | so | category: | [+F, +N, +V] | |
| subcat: | [adjectival] | |||
| more | category: | [+F, +N, +V] | ||
| subcat: | [adjectival] | |||
| -er | category: | [+F, +N, +V] | ||
| subcat: | [adjectival] |