Gradable and Non-Gradable Adjectives

Gradable & Non-gradable Adjectives

9a

Gradable and Non-gradable Adjectives

• "Gradable adjectives" are also called "qualitative adjectives". "Grading adverbs" are also called "submodifiers".

Gradable and Non-gradable Adjectives

• Ugly
• Important
• Old
• Beautiful
• Silly
• Clean
• Embarrassed
• Wonderful

• Hideous
• Crucial / Vital
• Ancient
• Gorgeous/Stunning
• Ridiculous
• Spotless
• Mortified
• Amazing

Gradable and Non-gradable Adjectives

• Upset
• Happy
• Expensive
• Hungry
• Surprised
• Hot
• Bad

• Devastated
• Ecstatic
• Exorbitant
• Ravenous
• Flabbergasted
• Boiling
• Awful

Adverbs with Non-gradable Adjectives

Non-grading Adverbs

Non-gradable Adjectives

Absolutely

Awful

Utterly (крайне)

Extreme

Excellent

Completely

Terrified

Totally

Nearly

Dead

Absolute

Impossible

Virtually ( фактически)

Unique

Essentially (по существу)

Chemical

Mainly

Classifying

Digital

Almost

Domestic

Other Non-grading Adverbs

• Entirely
• Exclusively
• Fully
• Largely
• Perfectly
• Practically
• Primarily (в основном, главным образом)

Adjectives with more than one meaning

Example sentence

Adjective

He's got a  very old  car.

Sense

Gradable

I saw my  old  boyfriend yesterday.

Not young

Non-gradable

He has some  dreadfully common  habits.

"The" is a  very common  word in English.

Former, ex-

Gradable

Vulgar

Gradable

The two countries'  common  border poses problems.

Prevalent

Non-gradable

Shared

Gradable Non-gradable

• Very
• More, the Most
• Extremely
• Slightly
• Rather
• A (little) bit

• Completely
• Absolutely
• Totally
• Entirely
• Almost
• Nearly

Really Pretty Quite Fairly

Exercises