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D) Superlative degree The superlative degree of an adjective or adverb denotes the most degree of the quality, and is used for more than two persons, animals or things - one against the rest - one having the highest degree of the quality in/of the rest. The Definite Article the is used before the adjective word in its superlative form, and the preposition of is used with people, animals and things and in or under with places and position .: She launched a most significant personal attack on him. (p. 11) a lansat unu dintre cele mai simnificative atacuri la adresa lui. (p.11)
While the phrase a most significant personal attack gives the idea of ??rather a high degree of the quality expressed, irrespective of any directly introduced or implied comparison with other attacks on him. It is the exclusion of the outwardly superlative adjective from a comparison that makes it into a simple elative, with its most constituent turned from the superlative auxiliary into a kind of a lexical intensifier.'s the most curious thing I ever say in my life. (p. 15) cel mai curios lucru pe care l-am spus? n via? a mea. (p.15)
A lot of adjectives make the style of the text ornate (or flowery), and slow down the action in the text, as one feels that one has to concentrate one's attention on the details of static entities or phenomena, and not to the action.looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. (p. 29) spre cea mai frumoas? gr? din? pe care a? i v? zut-o vreodat ?. (p.29) Definite Article the is not used with the superlative form most when it is used to mean very, and when it is used to indicate the possession of a quality in a very high degree but without any comparison:
Is it the best way to go for a beginner though? to the use of the adjective good in the superlative degree, evaluation and subjectivity are shown in explicit form. Despite the fact that, the adjective best has strikingly positive evaluation in this case it acquires negative connotation. It is due to the fact that in this case the adjective best is used in the sentence which bears the type of rhetorical question.
E) Intensifiers.
By this time, my sister was quite desperate. (p.33) timp, sora era extem de disperata. (p.33)
Quite combines with all kind of scalar adjectives. But, like the other modifiers, also co-occurs with adjective which are basically extreme and limit adjectives. The gradability feature is then modulated to make a good match. The situation is slightly different in the case of quite as compared to most other modifiers, since it has two different degree reading. If the adjective is an extreme one, as in our case (desperate) the prediction is that quite tends to be interpreted as a maximizer.situation in which was protagonist s sister was one with no chance to turn in the right direction. They have no solution to the problems they had.said quite vivaciously. (P.3) foarte vesel. (p.3)
Quite is the only degree modifier in English which is a member of two different paradigms and hence capable of expressing two different degrees. It gets its maximizer when combined with non-scalar adjectives, and its moderator reading when it combines with scalar adjective. In our case, the adverb vivaciously a is a non-scalar one, that s way we can attribute a mazimizer reading to quite.
2.5 A numerical analysis of degrees of comparison in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
As I have mentioned in the theoretical part of this Course Paper that degrees of comparison are more important than we think. A lot of people find them as simple words constructions that they just used to use in their everyday speech and we do not pay attention at the frequency of using them. When somebody speaks, we easy determine the nouns and the verbs he uses, as they are the main parts of speech and are well seen .cannot say the same thing about the degrees of comparison because it is used to give a more expressive description to the words it applies to. Also we can use them to make the style of speech ornate and flowery.
We can conclude that people know about the importance of the degrees of comparison, but they do not pay attention to this fact. They use them as something usual and without wondering why or how frequently they should use...
