Intensification in English [N-A]A and [A-A]A compounds

Of all the possible vehicles for intensification, adverbial intensifiers in predicate-intensifier collocations (very interesting) and, to a lesser extent, intensifying adjectives in adjective-noun collocations (great fun), are the most widely studied intensifying devices in the relevant literature. By contrast, as far as I am aware, intensifying [N+A]A and [A+A]A compounds have not received much attention to date. It is therefore the purpose of this paper to investigate the relation of intensification which links the two constituents of the compound against the background of previous research on intensifying compound adjectives and, most importantly, on predicate-intensifier collocations, in order to discuss degree of intensification and underlying pattern of intensification. As will be seen using a preliminary set of examples and lexicographic evidence from previous studies and the Oxford English Dictionary, such compounds achieve intensification for the extremely high and absolute degree (snow-white, all-red) chiefly via semantic-feature copying (snow-soft), or are motivated via direct or indirect comparison (snow white, blind drunk).