If something is ‘hot’, it may be ‘not very hot’ or ‘intensely hot’ or somewhere in between; there is an open-ended, continuous scale of ‘hotness’. Adjectives that express this kind of meaning are called gradable adjectives. Not all adjectives are gradable; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that adjectives are not always intended to be interpreted in a gradable sense. The ordinary interpretation of the word tubular in the expression tubular bells, or of poetic in poetic licence is not that it denotes a gradable quality, but that it denotes a type or category of bells or licence. Licence is either of the poetic type or it is not, it cannot be ‘fairly poetic’. Similarly bells cannot be ‘amazingly tubular’. Passing over this other kind of adjective for the present, let us examine the notion of gradability in more detail. If an adjective is gradable, it makes sense to ask ‘How?’; how hot?, how attractive?, etc. That is to say, we can ask for a gradation of the quality referred to. If somebody is talking about some high-rise flats, we can ask, ‘How tall are they?’ The answer we receive might be one of several kinds. First of all, we could be given an explicit and precise measure: twelve storeys, 150 feet, etc. (Quite often, of course, this kind of precise measure is not possible. There is no such exact way to answer the question How hostile was your reception? or How attractive is the picture?) As a second alternative, the degree of tallness might be stated with an intensifier: very, quite, or moderately. Third, it could be stated comparatively: taller than the other buildings; less tall than you would expect. Finally, it could be stated superlatively: The tallest 1 have ever seen, The least tall in that part of the town. Therefore, leaving aside the first kind of answer (150 feet), to which we shall here pay no further attention, there are three kinds of gradation: intensifying, comparative and superlative. The following description of gradability applies to both inflectable adjectives (e.g. tall, taller, tallest) and to non-inflectable ones (e.g. imposing, more
imposing, most imposing).