QUANTIFYING MODIFIERS
Exact quantification
If we ask the questions How old is she? How long was the queue? How high is Everest? How bad was the traffic-jam? the depth, length, height and age can be measured or quantified by saying:
She is 20 years old. The queue was 100 yards long.
Everest is 8,708 meters high. The cars were four deep on the motorway.
These AdjGs can be lexicalized as compound adjectives to modify nouns:
a twenty-year-old girl a hundred-yard-long queue
an 8,708-metre-high mountain a four-deep traffic-jam on the motorway
Non-exact quantification
With predicative function, non-measurable quantification is expressed by the determinatives the, that, this, any, all, little and no, as in:
Things are not getting any better. Well, as long as they’re not getting any worse . . . The situation is no worse than it was before. The trip wasn’t that interesting after all.
We need a box this big. (with a suitable gesture)
She looked all upset.
