AMP Amplifiers

Biber K48 Xiao R123 MFTE AMP Bohmann 86

Definition

Degree adverbs that intensify: very, extremely, thoroughly, absolutely, completely, etc.

Detection Rules

Default amplifiers rule (based on MFTE word list). Refines RB.

cql[word={words}]
Word list (21 items)
absolutely altogether completely definitely enormously entirely especially extraordinarily extremely fully greatly highly intensely particularly perfectly sorely strongly thoroughly totally utterly very

Requires: word

Refines: RB

mfte

cql[word={words}]
Word list (21 items)
absolutely altogether completely definitely enormously entirely especially extraordinarily extremely fully greatly highly intensely particularly perfectly sorely strongly thoroughly totally utterly very

Requires: word, pos

Refines: RB

pybiber

pybiber uses two patterns: all amplifiers (any POS), plus “altogether” only when NOT preceded by punctuation (negative lookbehind in blob regex avoids conjunct context).

p1 
cql[word={words}]
p2 
cql[upos!="PUNCT"] [word="altogether"]
combine: p1 | p2
Word list (17 items)
absolutely completely definitely drastically enormously entirely extremely fully greatly highly intensely perfectly strongly thoroughly totally utterly very

Requires: word, pos, upos

Normalization

Per words

Examples

The path was extremely dangerous at night.

She was completely exhausted from the journey.

That is very kind of you.

The river was very high after the rain.

I am very tired.

Source: le_foll_2024

They were both thoroughly frightened.

Source: le_foll_2024

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • mfte — Le Foll, Elen & Shakir, Muhammad (2023/2025) : Multi-Feature Tagger of English (MFTE) — Python version
  • pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
  • xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes
  • grieve_2023 — Grieve, Jack (2023) : Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis
  • bohmann_2019 — Bohmann, Axel (2019) : Variation in English Worldwide: Varieties and Genres in a Quantitative Perspective

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