On "very"-intensified superlatives
Johanna Alstott
March 2025 

Most theories of "very" treat it as a degree modifier whose distribution is restricted to positive-form APs. Against this view, Goncharov (2024) has argued that "very" has a much wider distribution, highlighting cases like "the very beginning," "the very same," and "the very man" and arguing for a unified analysis. While Goncharov (2024) represents a major step towards understanding "very," there is another use of "very" that, though it has been noted in passing, has not been closely scrutinized: "very"’s use in superlatives ("very best"). In this paper, I examine "very"-intensified superlatives more closely to gain a fuller understanding of "very." I start by arguing that "very"’s use in superlatives should be unified with its other uses; then, I turn to the question of what a unified, degree-based theory of "very" would have to look like. Ultimately, I pursue a new theory of "very" built on (a) a new approach to comparison classes; and (b) Fitzgibbons et al.’s (2008) claim that "-est," like the positive morpheme, invokes a standard-degree.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/008884 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	To appear in Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung (SuB) 29
keywords:	degree modifiers, superlatives, degrees, comparison classes, intensification, semantics
Downloaded:	213 times

 

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