Before we begin, have a look at the following sentence taken from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Take a closer look at the adverb and adjective and answer the questions that follow.
The house wasn’t nearly large enough for so many people, and life was extremely uncomfortable for them all.
What is the adverb in this sentence?
What is the purpose of the adverb?
What other adverbs could you use instead?
Why is absolutely not possible in this sentence?
Answers:
The adverb is extremely.
Like most adverbs, its purpose is to modify the meaning of a verb, adjective, adverb or sometimes a whole clause. In this case, it is modifying the meaning of uncomfortable, which is an adjective.
You could use really, very, rather, terribly, and many others.
Absolutely is used with ungradable adjectives. Uncomfortable is a gradable adjective and can only be modified using a gradable adverb (see #3). If you don't know what this is, then don't worry because this is what we are going to focus on for the rest of the lesson.
For the majority of adjectives in English, you'll need to put them into two categories: gradable adjectives or ungradable adjectives.
Gradable Adjectives
These adjectives can be made weaker or stronger by using an appropriate adverb before it.
Take a look at the following diagram:
In I am hungry, hungry is unmodified (i.e. there is no adverb to modify it). Let's assume that its strength is 100%, and 100% is the normal amount of hungry for you. We can make hungry stronger or weaker by using one of the adverbs on the line. We can use eating at McDonald's to illustrate this point.
I am hungry. (100%) = a medium Big Mac meal (fries and drink)
I am not hungry at all. (or I am not hungry at all.) (0%) = no food
I am a little hungry. (~33%) = a soft serve ice-cream
I am fairly hungry. (~66%) = a small cheeseburger meal (fries and drink)
I am pretty hungry. (~133%) = a large Big Mac meal and a chocolate sundae
I am very hungry. (~166%) = a large Big Mac meal, 3 chicken nuggets, and a chocolate sundae
I am extremely hungry. (200%) = a large Big Mac meal, 6 chicken nuggets, a chocolate sundae and an apple pie.
Who's hungry? I know I am.
The % above are arbitrary and only serve as a guide to help you see how each adverb compares with each other. Additionally, how I have listed some of the adverbs may contradict what other English-speakers may do. Fear not, this only adds to the creative beauty of English. The following table gives more details on how I use them:
In the next section, we will look at ungradable adverbs and adjectives, and you will find a list of common gradable adjectives and their ungradable equivalents.
Ungradable Adjectives
These adjectives represent absolute qualities (i.e. It is or it isn't). These are also known as Extreme Adjectives. Using the diagram above, ungradable adjectives refer to adjectives that sit at the 0% or 200% intensity level.
I am extremely hungry. (=200%)
I am starving. (= extremely hungry = 200%)
First of all, I want you to predict what the ungradable equivalents of the following gradable adjectives are. Two have been done for you as an example. You can find the answers in the table that follows.
Remember that cold and freezing are not the same thing. Cold = 100% and freezing = 200%. To make them the same, you would need to say extremely cold or terribly cold.
Here is the completed table.
Why are these useful?
They make your language more interesting, passionate and precise. In an exam situation, you should be using these to demonstrate a wide range of vocabulary.
It is also possible to modify ungradable adjectives, but you need to use ungradable adverbs. The four most common ones are:
totally
completely
absolutely
utterly (tends to be used with negative adjectives)
These make ungradable adjectives even stronger. For example:
I am starving. (=200%)
I am absolutely starving. (=300%)
Again, the % are arbitrary, but you can see how strong we can really make our expressions if we really want to. So, which adverbs do we use if they are all the same strength. Collocations (how native speakers choose the words they use collectively) play a large role in this, but many are interchangeable. You'll need to be exposed a large range of good English to see how native speakers use this type of language. For example:
I was absolutely furious.
The presentation was completely incomprehensible.
That movie was totally absurd.
My exam score was utterly disastrous.
There is a second group of ungradable adverbs and adjectives. These show amount or quantity. The four common adverbs are:
almost
virtually
practically
nearly
Whereas the first group of adverbs (totally, absolutely, completely, utterly) show completeness, this group shows 'almost complete', hence the use of almost as an ungradable adverb. For example:
The beach was virtually empty. (99% empty; or 1 or 2 people on the beach)
The beach was completely empty. (100% empty; or zero people on the beach)
You're almost correct with question 4.
You're absolutely correct.
The general rule with this lesson is that you need to keep your gradable adverbs with gradable adjectives, and keep your ungradable adverbs with ungradable adjectives. Don't mix them!
In reality, however, there are some exceptions and we find that many native speakers tend to use:
really; with both gradable and ungradable adjectives
pretty; with both gradable and ungradable adjectives (very colloquial)
quite; with gradable adjectives to mean 66% or 133%, or with ungradable adjectives to mean completely
an adverb that starts with a different letter from the adjective (when there is more than one possibility) e.g. absolutely absurd (sounds strange) vs totally absurd (sounds better)
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