The status of adjectives – Stating the Problem

It has been shown in the previous section that there are quite a number of different types of degree expressions, one of which is typically used with adjectives or, to be more precise, with a subclass of adjectives (cf. Kennedy and McNally 2005). The question is now what the degree expression continuum tells us about the status of adjectives with respect to gradability. Are adjectives special or not?

Given the fact that adjectives are found at one end of the continuum in Table 1, one could argue that they are non-special and special at the same time: non-special because they behave similarly to other categories in being part of the continuum, and special in being at one end of it. This allows us to reformulate our initial question as follows: Why are adjectives at one end of the continuum and what restricts the distribution of type A expressions to adjectives?

A first, rather naive, hypothesis about the status of adjectives is based on the difference between quantities and qualities. Adjectives denote qualities, and as such adjectival modifiers correspond to intensifiers. One could assume that type A expressions are restricted to adjectives because they fail to indicate a quantity. Verbs and nouns introduce a quantity and combine with expressions that indicate a degree of quantity, while adjectives correspond to qualities and as such are modified by intensifiers:

However, if one type of degree expressions is sensitive to the distinction between quantity and quality, it is rather type B than type A (cf. to appreciate to a certain degree/extent), and type B is not restricted to adjectives (I will come back to this below).

Note that the difference between a quality and a quantity is not always obvious. Gradable abstract nouns such as success and patience behave like mass nouns (much success, a lot of patience) with respect to the degree expressions they combine with. However, intuitively, these nouns correspond to a scale that is qualitative rather than quantitative. Similarly, it is not even obvious that adjectives are always associated with “qualitative scales,” as illustrated by the examples in (2):

In this type of example very and très have an interpretation that is similar to often.