Interpreting Intensifiers for Relative Adjectives: Comparing Models and Theories

Adjectives such as tall or late which can enter comparative constructions or be modified by intensifiers such as very are called gradable. They have received considerable attention in formal semantics and, more recently, in Bayesian pragmatics. While comparative constructions are well understood, less is known about the contribution of intensifiers. In this paper, we compare several concrete models for the meaning of very tall with data from a previous study, in the hope of shedding light on the semantic contributions of intensifiers.