Adjectival extremeness: degree modification and contextually restricted scales

摘要

This paper argues that degree modifiers such as flat-out, downright, pos-itively, and straight-up constitute a distinct natural class specialized for modifying extreme adjectives (such as gigantic, fantastic, or gorgeous), and that extreme ad-jectives themselves come in two varieties: ones that encode extremeness as part of their lexical semantics and ones that can acquire it on the basis of contextual fac-tors. These facts suggest that a theory is required of what it means for an adjec-tive to be 'extreme' in the relevant sense. I propose one, based on the idea that in any given context, we restrict our attention to a particular salient portion of a scale. To reflect this, I suggest that quantification over degrees is—like quantification in other domains—contextually restricted. Extreme adjectives and corresponding de-gree modifiers can thus both be understood as a means of signaling that a degree lies outside a contextually-provided range.