Intensity Markers and Verbal Expressions: Some Reflections

It is widely assumed that the French degree markers beaucoup, autant, tant on the one hand, & tres, aussi, si on the other, are in complementary distribution. While the former denote both quantity & intensity & modify nouns & verbs, the latter denote only intensity & modify adjectives & adverbs. However, this distribution does not hold, for instance, in the case of some phrasal verbs, such as avoir faim, where it is more likely to find intensifiers of the second series, instead of the first one, as expected. That phenomenon cannot be easily accounted for by the mere meaning of those phrases (mostly: feelings, states). It might reflect a tendency of the "pure" intensifiers to replace, in various contexts, words which are quantifiers as well as intensifiers. In any case, every intensifiable phrasal verb has to be marked in the lexicon for such idiosyncratic uses of intensifiers. References. Adapted from the source document