Degree expressions and intensifiers. Terminological issues of lexicological and lexicographic relevance

Intensifiers represent an extremely varied and everchanging lexico-functional category. Although they have been an extremely popular topic in linguistics and English linguistics in particular, naming and delimiting the category still represents a highly debated issue, possibly as a result of relying on the psychological process of grading and of continuously developing from other categories. Most importantly, we argue in favour of using degree expressions as an umbrella term for various categories that interact with scales: scale adjusters, (degree of) quantity modifiers, excessives (or excessive degree modifiers), emphasizers and intensifiers. Intensifiers are characterized by: a) vague specification of a domain along a scale of degree, from most central degree modification to most peripheral degree-fixing intensification, depending on the scale associated with the predicate; b) shift from more objective to more subjective meanings; c) expressivity, or ability to index the speaker, and speech act modification. Ability to combine with other (pragmatically) intensifying devices (to begin with, predicates with relative standards of comparison, and inherent superlatives in particular) is precisely to be taken as a diagnosis for membership into the category.