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Inlinguistics, anintensifier (abbreviatedINT) is a lexical category (butnot a traditionalpart of speech) for amodifier that makes no contribution to thepropositional meaning of aclause but serves to enhance and give additional emotional context to thelexical item it modifies. Intensifiers are grammaticalexpletives, specificallyexpletive attributives (or, equivalently,attributive expletives orattributive-only expletives; they also qualify asexpressive attributives), because they function as semanticallyvacuous filler. Characteristically,English draws intensifiers from a class of words calleddegree modifiers, words thatquantify the idea they modify. More specifically, they derive from a group of words calledadverbs of degree, also known asdegree adverbs. When used grammatically as intensifiers, these words cease to be degreeadverbs, because they no longer quantify the idea they modify; instead, they emphasize it emotionally. By contrast, the wordsmoderately,slightly, andbarely are degree adverbs, butnot intensifiers. The other hallmark of prototypical intensifiers is that they are adverbs which lack the primary characteristic of adverbs: the ability to modify verbs. Intensifiers modify exclusivelyadjectives and adverbs, but this rule isinsufficient to classify intensifiers, since there exist other words commonly classified as adverbs that never modify verbs but are not intensifiers, e.g.questionably.
For these reasons,Huddleston argues that intensifier not be recognized as a primarygrammatical or lexical category.[1] Intensifier is a category with grammatical properties, butinsufficiently defined unless itsfunctional significance is also described (what Huddleston calls anotional definition[2]).
Technically, intensifiers roughly qualify a point on theaffectivesemantic property, which isgradable.Syntactically, intensifiers pre-modify either adjectives or adverbs.Semantically, they increase the emotional content of an expression. The basic intensifier isvery. A versatile word, English permitsvery to modify adjectives and adverbs, but not verbs. Other intensifiers often express the same intention asvery.
Not all intensifiers are the same syntactically since they vary on whether they can be used attributively orpredicatively. For example,really andsuper can be used in both ways:[3]
Words such asso can occur only as predicative intensifiers,[3] and others, such as-ass, typically are used only as attributive intensifiers:[4]
There is dialectal variation in the "correctness" of certain forms.
An intensifier expressly provides an emotional characterization of alexical item for the benefit of a reader or listener. A speaker or writer's use of the characterization encourages a reader or listener to consider and begin to feel the underlying emotion.[5]
In general, overuse of intensifiers negatively affects the persuasiveness or credibility of a legal argument.[6] However, if a judge's authoritative written opinion uses a high rate of intensifiers, a lawyer's written appeal of that opinion that also uses a high rate of intensifiers is associated with an increase in favorable outcomes for such appeals. Also, when judges disagree with each other in writing, they tend to use more intensifiers.[citation needed]
A 2010Stanford Graduate School of Business study[7] found that, in quarterly earnings conference calls, deceptive CEOs use a greater percent quantity of "extreme positive emotions words" than do CEOs telling the truth.[8][9] That finding agrees with the presumption that CEOs attempting to hide poor performance exert themselves more forcefully to persuade their listeners.David F. Larcker and Zakolyukinaz give a list of 115 extreme positive emotions words, including intensifiers: awful, deucedly, emphatically, excellently, fabulously, fantastically, genuinely, gloriously, immensely, incredibly, insanely, keenly, madly, magnificently, marvelously, splendidly, supremely, terrifically, truly, unquestionably, wonderfully, very [good].
A 2013Forbes Magazine article[10] about counterproductive modes of expression in English specifically discouraged use ofreally and observed that it provokes doubt and degrades the speaker's credibility: "'Really' – Finder calls this a 'poor attempt to instill candor and truthfulness' that makes clients and coworkers question whether you'rereally telling the truth."
PhilosopherFriedrich Nietzsche, inHuman, All Too Human (1878), wrote:
The narrator. It is easy to tell whether a narrator is narrating because the subject matter interests him or because he wants to evoke interest through his narrative. If the latter is the case, he will exaggerate, use superlatives, etc. Then he usually narrates the worse, because he is not thinking so much about the story as about himself.[11][12]
A quote often attributed toMark Twain but probably by newspaper editorWilliam Allen White is "Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."[13]
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