"Non-gradable adjective" vs "Gradable adjective"

[Tom]

Hi

Could you please tell me the difference between:

"Non-gradable adjective" and "Gradable adjective"

Mister Micawber sometimes answered my posts using these two "terminologies", and I remained none the wiser! :oops: Here is one for example!

Expression: The 'mark distribution' in English and Urdu papers does not...
http://www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic15556.html

Tom

[Pamela]

Hi Tom,

Gradable adjectives can be compared:
good -better-the best

They can also be modified with the intensifying word 'very'

Non-gradable adjectives are deprived of the forms of comparison and are not intensified. They cannot be measured.

Mister Micawber inferred 'very much' justified not to be correct.

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

An example of a non-gradable adjective is the word dead. When something is dead, it is just dead. When something/someone dies, there are no varying degrees of "deadness".

If John, Sally, Fred and Matilda have all died, you cannot say that John is "deader" than both Sally and Fred and that Matilda is the "deadest" of all. Similarly, you generally cannot say that Matilda is "extremely dead" and that John is only "slightly dead".

Amy
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