Adverbials of amplification, or amplifiers, are concerned with asserting a generalized high degree on an imaginary scale of intensity; they scale upward from an assumed norm. Examples of amplifiers are: ‘juéduì de’ (absolutely), ‘wánquán de’ (completely), ‘jíqí’ (extremely), ‘chèdǐ de’ (thoroughly, utterly), ‘chōngfèn de’ (fully), ‘shízú de’ (utterly), ‘wánměi de’ (perfectly), ‘fēicháng’ (extremely), ‘shífēn’ (fully), etc. This type of amplifier is interpreted as expressing the absolute upper extreme on the imaginary scale of intensity.
1a. 她们全然漠视我们的警告。
Tāmen quánrán mòshì wǒmen de jǐnggào.
(They completely ignored our warning.)
1b. 学生们毫无保留地支持老师们的观点。
Xuéshēngmen háowúbǎoliú de zhīchí lǎoshīmen de guāndiǎn.
(The students supported the teachers’ viewpoints unreservedly.)
1c. 我完全可以理解你为什么焦急。
Wǒ wánquán kěyǐ lǐjiě nǐ wèishénme jiāojí.
(I can completely understand why you are so worried.)
1d. 我非常/十分欣赏这个电影。
Wǒ fēicháng/shífēn xīnshǎng zhège diànyǐng.
(I enjoyed the movie very much.)
In the above examples, the amplifying adverbials or amplifiers all convey absolute meaning of extreme degree.
[1] Loar, J. K. (2011). Chinese syntactic grammar: functional and conceptual principles. New York: Peter Lang.
