强调语气和程度的副词

hey grammarians so we've already talked about the idea of the comparative modifiers right so you you know the difference between saying something is cute and then saying that something is cuter than that thing and then looking at like I don't know let's say we're looking at a puppy or a mushroom little mushroom with a smiley face and you say oh that's the world's cutest mushroom right that's the comparative we've already covered that I would like to talk about something I think is a really interesting topic what's that just say a really interesting topic No what's that really doing there in in this little most little phrase and a really interesting topic well it's modifying interesting we recognize that this is an adverb right really is modifying interesting which is an adjective interesting in turn is modifying topic but the question is what what does really mean what is its function and the answer is that it's a type of word we call an intensifier so so the function of really is to just double down on the idea of interesting so it's not just an interesting topic it's a really interesting topic you could also say it's a very interesting topic or even an extremely interesting topic and that kind of gets us into this other category which is called adverbs of degree so an intensifier let me let me just step back a little bit of an intensifier is a type of adverb that modifies an adjective or another adverb in a way that doubles down on the modified things meaning so it's not just an interesting topic it's a really interesting topic so it's like extra special extra interesting it it makes it intensifies it really accentuates or makes clear the fact that you're trying to drive home the interestingness of this topic but frankly talking about how interesting a topic is is a pretty good shortcut for boring so in order to talk about adverbs of degree I'm going to talk instead about the incredibly deadly Viper which is a creature from a series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket so the incredibly deadly Viper there it is there's your terrifying horned Viper yonder OOP and and and what the word incredibly is doing here is it is serving as an intensifier right but it is also what we like to call an adverb of degree because it's saying the extent to which this Viper is so very deadly however if this Viper had a cousin that was the somewhat deadly Viper you know maybe we can blunt its teeth somewhat maybe he's got like square teeth that's the somewhat deadly Viper you know we can see that somewhat this word here is changing the meaning of the phrase it's not just the deadly Viper it's the somewhat deadly Viper it's it's import has been blunted slightly as have as have its teeth and you could also say you know what if he didn't have any teeth and all this was ostensibly deadly Viper what if you just had like gums well then he's the barely deadly Viper instead and these words like incredibly and somewhat and barely these are adverbs of degree so they illustrate the degree to which the Viper is deadly dangerous so that's that's basically what intensifiers and adverbs of degree do so whenever you see whenever you think of an intensifier just think of the word very you know and when you when you're trying to figure out what an adverb of degree is well that kind of answers the question how much so if you want to double down on the meaning of something you use an intensifier like very or extremely and if you want to express a degree of something you know you could say let's say we're talking about like a cup of tea or something and you want to express how warm it is you could say it's too hot you could say it's slightly hot you could say somewhat or almost hot there are a lot of different adverbs of degree but that's basically the the distinction is an intensifier is powerful but it has a very narrow usage and adverbs of degree you can use for a wide range of uses to express a variety of different meanings that's intensifiers and adverbs of degree you can learn anything Dave it out