Extreme nouns and maximizers

Abstract

Maximizers (completamente ‘completely’, totalmente ‘totally’) are degree modifiers
restricted to maximum standard adjectives. Spanish adjectives of completeness [ACs] (completo
‘complete’, total ‘total’) display a behavior similar to that of their adverbial counterparts
when they combine with nouns like idiot. This paper argues that ACs are maximality modifiers
of idiot-like nouns, which are defended to be gradable and denote extreme degrees of properties.
Establishing a parallelism between adverbs and adjectives of completeness allows us to
explore scalarity across categories and the relevance of scale structure in the nominal domain.
Keywords: extreme nouns, maximizers, adjectives of completeness, scale structure, nominal
gradability.